Devotion
by vaarchie
Summary: Clearly the Lodges' extracurriculars skew toward the illegal, but this is the first time Veronica is caught in the backdraft, the first time her life is truly in danger, and by association, so is Archie's. Protecting each other has always been a constant goal for them, but now, it's more real and critical than ever. (Varchie)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** **If you've read any sneak peeks I've posted on my Tumblr (vaarchie, btw, if you're feeling chatty) then some of this will be familiar to you, but most of it is new. Because I am a horrible mean person, there's going to be a lot of angst in this fic, but I'll ask you to trust me and hope that you enjoy it.**

* * *

Veronica is confident her parents are in bed when she slips through the front door and finds them standing in front of the windows, gazing out at the downpour like they're expecting the mysteries of the universe to be revealed to them from outside.

Come to think of it, maybe they are.

She stops. She stares. She could try to tiptoe past them or try for plausible deniability, could claim she lost track of time, but already she knows she's going to be walking out of this room with some kind of punishment for coming home so late. Water from the storm outside drips from her hair and onto the pristine rug; a tiny puddle forms around her feet.

"Hey, Ronnie." Just like that, just like always, she's caught. He's straightening his tie, careful, but no one has ever sneaked up on Hiram Lodge in his entire life, and when he turns to face his daughter, he doesn't look a bit surprised, or even angry.

"Hey, Daddy," she says slowly, a sound like waves and roaring in her head. Something is wrong. She slips her index finger through her key ring and squeezes, the cold metal biting into the flesh of her palm, but before she has time to feel properly unsettled, her parents are bypassing the ' _Where have you been?'_ s and hugging her tight. Like it's something they do a lot.

She blinks. "I didn't realize," she begins, not entirely sure of which particular ignorance she's about to confess: all of them, maybe, sixteen years' worth of universal truths everyone was smart enough to figure out except for her.

"We need to tell you something, Veronica," her mother says, stepping back but keeping one manicured hand set lightly on her daughter's shoulder. She clears her throat, clearly apprehensive, and it makes Veronica's own nerves skyrocket. "Come with us."

They lead her to the kitchen; on the table is a small wooden box, and on the counter is a half chopped carrot and a gritty-skinned tomato, abandoned and slightly wrinkled.

"What's going on?" Veronica asks, trying to keep her voice steady. The anticipation of bad news is starting to slowly kill her now. "Just rip the band-aid off and tell me."

Her father sighs like the end of the world is at hand, and pulls several envelopes out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Your mother and I have been receiving threatening letters for a few weeks now."

Veronica swallows as a few pieces click into place. They've been fighting, her parents - raging at each other like they're in the throes of a truly spectacular screaming match, and on top of that, they've all but turned the Pembrooke into a military encampment that Veronica is seldom allowed to leave, especially not without a set curfew, and, more often than not, an escort, whether that be Andre or Archie or one of her parents themselves. "And you didn't tell me?"

"No," he says, and looks at her evenly. Outside, thunder claps and wind rushes by like God is sending a flood for forty days.

"Why not?" She asks, staring right back at him. His hair is going gray at the temples.

"We didn't tell you," her father says, and he is the very theology of calm, "because we were hoping they weren't serious."

Well.

Both of them are staring at Veronica, waiting. "Did something else happen?" She asks warily.

Her mother picks up the wooden box on the table and holds it carefully, like it's a grenade that's going to explode at any given moment. Slowly, she slides the cover off, and when Veronica peers inside, she feels a chill run down her spine.

There's a picture of her with her face scribbled out in permanent marker. There's a knife - a _machete_ , Veronica notes with a wave of nausea - covered in what appears to be dry blood and wrapped in a string of pearls. Jesus Christ, there's even voodoo dolls of the three of them, nooses wrapped tight around their fabricated necks. There's a typed letter that Veronica doesn't want to read.

"What the hell does this mean?" She takes a deep breath and tries to contain the overflow. "Someone's putting a hit on us?"

Her father takes the box, shuts it tight. "For now, it just means that we're going to have to take extra precautions and up our security. Okay?"

Veronica shuts her eyes as lightning cracks overhead. She barely sleeps that night, finally falling into a fitful sort of rest an hour before her alarm is blaring in her ear and telling her to get ready for school.

She half expects someone to shoot her in the head the second she steps out of the Pembrooke, some sniper on a rooftop or a hitman in the bushes, and she laughs out loud, hysteria more than anything else. Andre drives her to school and she feels a host of emotions as she sits through each banal class, fear and anger and avoidance. At lunch, she eats at a table with Archie and Jughead and Betty - just one more thing they've always done together, world without end. She almost laughs again at the cruel irony of it all. Clifford Blossom had threatened to kill Jughead. The Black Hood had psychologically tormented Betty and then attempted to have Archie buried alive, so now, it seems, it's Veronica's turn to face off against some sick minded lunatic.

"V?" Betty looks at her, her delicate chin angled with curiosity and an open, comforting expression on her face. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Veronica says, and even as she tries to tamp it down she can feel the edge creeping into her voice. Archie looks at her curiously. "I just-" she pushes her food around with her fork, fidgeting. All of a sudden she feels alarmingly close to tears. "I'm fine."

"Ronnie," Archie says, setting his hand over hers, and now he really does look concerned, all his boyfriend instincts coming online at once. "What's wrong?"

For a second she almost tells them everything: her mom and dad and how lonely she feels lately, how she needs to get out of Riverdale, how someone out there wants her and her family dead. The way they're looking at her, their faces open and caring, makes her think they'll listen and be able to help. Still, spilling her guts right here at the lunch table? That's pathetic. That's absurd.

"Nothing," she tells him, smiling as hard and as brightly as she can manage. She probably looks deranged. "I'm great."

She gets an A on the Biology quiz next period. In English, she starts working her way through Sylvia Plath's _Collected Poems_ , but that makes Betty really nervous, so she switches to Jane Austen so she can sleep without worrying Veronica is going to put her head in an oven or something.

Which she isn't.

Probably.

She feels so incredibly, unforgivably _afraid_ , is the worst part, like no where she goes will ever be safe again. She's never been scared of much of anything before, and then a wooden box appears on her kitchen table and she's done, game over, thanks for playing. It's wrong. It's _terrifying_.

It hurts like nothing else in her life.

The final bell rings and she squints at the sun, wondering where on Earth she might go without feeling like prey about to be pounced on. Very clearly, she thinks of Archie, and right on cue, like one shining moment in the horror movie of her recent life, he appears at her side and wraps an arm around her waist.

"I have to go to football practice," he says, "and I know you have cheer. But can I take you on a drive afterwards?"

Veronica feels her pulse like a ticking bomb in her throat, but the way he looks at her makes her stop shaking, at least. "Yeah," she murmurs, and he kisses her.

* * *

Archie holds the door open and Veronica follows him across the school's parking lot to his dad's old truck. He doesn't talk, and she has no idea where they're going, but at this point it feels a little late to ask; she opens her mouth, hesitates, shuts it again. Archie doesn't seem bothered at all. The middle of winter means the sun went out an hour ago.

She glances around the truck as surreptitiously as she can manage, beginning a list in her head as he hits the gas. _Floor of the Andrews' truck, a complete inventory: empty Snapple bottle - peach iced tea - check. Duke Ellington Live at Newport 1956, check. Dashboard: sunglasses, check. Tree shaped air freshener still in the package, check. Mix CD with Betty Cooper's handwriting on the label, check._

She closes her eyes for a second. Her best friend in New York used to make her mixes all the time, songs for her birthday and Christmas and springtime and Tuesdays. Her favorite was called "The Bad Behavior Mix," sixty minutes of ridiculous club music presented to her on the occasion of their first high school dance at Smith. They'd ended up back at Veronica's house by 9:30 that night, abandoning after party plans in favor of making brownies with Hermione and shouting along to the music doubled over in hysterical giggles.

She doesn't mean to sigh, never even hears herself do it, but she must, because Archie glances over at her as he turns a corner, sharp features lit reddish by the neon lights on the dash. "Long day?" he asks.

"Yeah," she replies, letting him think it's the monotony of school getting her down and not the absolute hopelessness of her life at present. "Kind of."

His eyes glitter a hundred thousand adjectives beyond bright as he nods. "Want milkshakes?"

She blinks. "Milkshakes?" she repeats. She doesn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't… that. Though it probably should have been.

"Yeah, princess, milkshakes," he laughs as he pulls into Pop's, not bothering to wait for her answer. "Were you hoping I'd just drive us out of the state or something?"

"No!" she says, although to be honest, Archie is probably closer to the truth than not. She unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the car. "No."

"There's something else bothering you," he bumps her shoulder with his as they cross the parking lot, so lightly she thinks it was probably an accident. "Other than school stuff."

She shakes her head and looks away. "There really isn't."

"Okay," he says, his voice like he thinks she's full of shit but doesn't particularly mind. "I'll wait until you're ready to tell me."

They order at the counter and she digs in her purse for her wallet, pulling out a set of house keys and her map of NYC to get to the bottom. Archie pushes her hand away. "I got it," he tells her and hands a wrinkled twenty to Pop, looking at Veronica like she's a little out of her mind because he always pays when they're together. He nods at the map. "Planning a trip back home?"

"Yes," she says. "I mean, no." It suddenly feels enormously stupid, this game she plays with herself, like hopscotch or Barbie. "Just a reminder of my old life." She balls up the map in her fists and tosses it into the trash can.

Archie raises his eyebrows as he guides her over to a table. After living in Riverdale for nearly six months, the old-fashioned chock'lit shop is as familiar to Veronica as breathing, with its wood paneling and glowing lights, the antique cash register that springs open with a loud ring. She smells sugar and cold air.

"Ronnie?" He says cautiously. "If you won't tell me what's wrong, just please - promise me you're not in danger or anything."

Pop chooses that very moment to slide their milkshakes onto their table and then depart with a few pleasantries, and Veronica busies herself with wrapping her red lips around the straw, her mouth full of ice cream instead of conversation. Archie is still staring at her when she looks up though, waiting her out, and she suddenly feels too big for these walls. "Pop?" She calls. "We're going to take these to go."

Two minutes later, she herds Archie back toward the door, and he holds it open with one foot as she slips through. They don't speak as they cross the lot toward the truck, navigating a teeming crowd of noisy, restless kids about their age, shouts and laughter. Once there, Archie climbs up onto the hood with his milkshake and tilts his head to the empty space beside him until Veronica gets the message and pulls her heeled boots up onto the bumper along with him.

"My dad," she says, "has a lot of enemies." Archie keeps staring at her. "And as nice as it would be if this weren't the case, I sometimes get caught in the backdraft." The words sound wooden and unfamiliar; this isn't something she tells anyone, really. "People he's made angry… they've been sending our family… messages… recently." She feels vaguely sick, remembering the bloody knife wrapped in pearls, remembering the dolls, remembering the way it's driving her parents apart, the catalyst for their fights. "Baseless threats, mostly," she says, trying to convince herself as much as Archie, "but it's making my parents fight. That's it." She finally looks back at him. "I'm not in any danger," she says, trying to sound sincere, and she thinks she must do a pretty good job of it, because when she leans toward him, Archie slides his free hand into her hair and kisses her, and she tastes chocolate and rainbow sprinkles and closes her eyes.

He pulls back a little bit. "Is this okay?" he asks after a second or two.

She nods.

"Not making things worse, am I?"

She shakes her head. "No," she says, recovering slightly. When Archie kisses her, her fears skitter like moths at the panicky edges of her brain, and she feels… calm. "Better, actually."

Archie tosses his milkshake into a nearby trash can and cups both of his hands around her face. "Good."

He's still kissing her when her phone rings inside her pocket a minute later, and he makes to pull away but her grip tightens, a gentle fist in his hair. "Ignore it. Ignore it," she mutters, and he does for a minute, but then it rings again.

"Archie," she says breathlessly, reaching for her phone even as the rest of her is still otherwise engaged. "Archie, it's my house. I have to pick it up. Hello?" she says, while - oh God, oh _hell_ , they're in the middle of a parking lot and her _dad_ is on the phone - Archie moves his mouth down to her neck. "Hi. What's up?"

"Veronica," her father says, and there's a sound in his voice she's never heard before, panic and anger. "Oh, thank God. Where in the hell are you?"

She jumps off the hood of the truck so fast that she just about takes Archie's head off, squeezing her eyes shut as she tries to figure out what to say.

She's still trying to come up with an answer when he pushes forward; "Are you with Betty?" he demands.

She curls her free hand into a fist. Archie watches her carefully. She fumbles around for something plausible, finally has to settle for the truth. "No," she admits. "No, I'm not."

"Thank God," he says again, then, to whomever is in the room with him, Hermione, probably: "She's okay. I've got her."

"What?" Veronica says sharply. Suddenly she's very, very afraid. "What's going on?"

"Ronnie," he says, and she knows she'll never forget this as long as she lives, the neon lights of Pop's glowing over her, the curious expression on Archie Andrews' pretty face, and the tiny shards of glass embedded in the asphalt, like something fragile and bright had only just exploded there. "I have to tell you something bad."


	2. Chapter 2

If Archie had any idea of what the next twenty four hours would look like, he might tell himself: _Hey! You're having a Pivotal Moment in a Sentimental Place_. Sitting on the hood of the truck with Veronica - on a scale of 1 to Serious, he should have rated that moment at least a 9. But he didn't. His Serious Scale didn't even register. Not a single cell in his brain cared to define the evening in the grand scheme of things. Or in any scheme of things, really.

Now, though, Archie doesn't say a word as he speeds away from Pop's and toward the hospital, quiet as nighttime. It feels like a chasm has opened in Veronica's chest. The CD in the stereo is still spinning, some old Louis Armstrong, and she reaches forward to click it off. "It's bad, right?" She whispers. "My father said Betty and Jughead might both already need emergency surgery, and he wouldn't-" She breaks off, the words swallowed up by guilt and confusion and this huge, endless fear. She digs her fingernails into the passenger seat, willing the truck to go faster. "It must be bad."

They park in the cavernous garage at the hospital and get lost on the way to the ER, the two of them wandering the corridors, panicky and on edge. "This way," Archie says finally, and Veronica follows him down a freezing, fluorescent hallway, then through a set of doors and into chaos.

There's a crowd in the waiting room, small but restless. Jughead's dad and Betty's, Alice crying noisily with her hair secured in a haphazard knot. And there are Archie and Veronica's parents, watchful and waiting, somehow already gutted like carcasses or husks. Hermione looks heartbroken. Fred and Hiram look old.

They get to their feet as Archie and Veronica run across the wide expanse of linoleum, throwing off fear and heat. Veronica doesn't have time to get to her mom and dad though, because Mrs. Cooper spots her and rushes forward, grabbing her so tightly it's painful. She feels her ribs scrape together inside her chest. "The motorcycle got ran off the road. Betty is in surgery," Alice wails. It's a sound Veronica has never heard before, and, if it pleases God, a sound she would like never to hear again.

She thinks, very clearly: _This isn't happening_.

She thinks, very clearly: _Who ran them off the road?_

She stands there with Betty's mom for a while, lets her sob into the limp fabric of her shirt. She doesn't cry. She doesn't do much of anything, to be honest; she feels frozen, bizarrely quiet, like something has been hermetically sealed inside her. She hears the whine of an ambulance in the distance, the whoosh of a door whispering shut. Finally Mr. Cooper pries Alice gently from her arms.

"They can't die," Veronica tells him.

"Ronnie." That was her mom, coming closer, but Veronica steps away, out of her reach.

"I'm serious," she says, and her voice is louder this time. She's having difficulty understanding what's happening. "They can't- we were-"

She trails off as her mother wraps her arms around her, stands there loose-limbed and bewildered while Hermione whispers Spanish prayers in her ear. "I'm not _kidding_ ," Veronica tells her, voice cracking. She feels her lungs start to collapse. She looks up one more time before she stops remembering anything, just in time to see the sharp, jagged pleat of Archie's backbone as she watches him fall into his father's arms and break down.

...

Later, Veronica glances around. The wall is sponged shades of taupe and beige, the floor speckled gray like a low-budget Pollock painting. The soda machine rumbles and glows. A young man with a towel wrapped around his hand sits next to a woman in a dress playing on her cell phone; they're the only other ones here. Slow day for emergencies, maybe. She crosses her legs, uncrosses them. It's uncomfortably cold in here, like the North Pole or a convenience store at 2 am, and she shivers, and almost immediately, Archie wraps his jacket around her. If he can't help Betty and Jughead, he can at least protect Veronica from freezing temperatures. She swallows.

Her cousin told her once that the night their grandpa died, her father sat in the pitch dark of their apartment on Park Avenue and played piano until the dawn came up orange and dripping behind him. Scales, he'd told her. Scales and Mozart and Billy Joel and anything else he could think of, things that no one, not even her father himself, could remember once morning finally broke.

Veronica has no way to account for the historical accuracy of this particular legend. Lord knows her cousin loves a good story, and he's never lacked the imagination to craft one, but since the night she first heard it - whispered through the rainforest heat of upstate New York years after it supposedly happened - she's believed on blind faith. There's a picture of it in her head: her father, features glass sharp and back hunched with grief, fingers flying over black and white piano keys. A picture so vivid that, for a long time, Veronica was convinced that maybe she remembered, too.

Now when she thinks about it for any length of time, she realizes it's probably just a composite, some sloppy amalgam from all the other nights when she did wake up to find him at the glossy Steinway that sat in state near the window at their place on Park Avenue. There were dozens upon dozens of those nights when she was a little girl, nights when she'd climb out of bed, woken by whatever heinous nightmare she'd been having to creep barefoot and half awake down the hall to listen to her father play his music. With the right song, you understand, her father could atone for whatever sins had been committed against his baby daughter by the world at large. With the right song, Veronica always thought with sleepy confidence as she leaned her dark head against the wall and closed her eyes, that her father could set her free.

She hasn't heard him play music in years. She plays it for herself now, or, more often, Archie does, melodies he pulls out of thin air when he knows she's feeling down, when she's feeling happy, when she's feeling agitated. With his fingers curled around the neck of a guitar, he can admonish Veronica's every misgiving and help her see the way forward, can make her smile or sing or feel like she's flying.

"Ronnie."

She looks up and realizes this isn't the first time Archie has called her name, and that he and her parents are all looking at her, waiting. Her ankle is bouncing wildly, and she stops it. "What?" She asks, defensive.

"Your dad asked you if you want coffee."

"Yeah," she says, not really caring one way or the other. Archie wraps his hand around hers, and they wait.

What they don't tell you about hospitals, what they don't show you on TV shows about well-scrubbed doctors and patients whose lives they save is how long everything takes. Hiram returns with two cardboard trays full of iced coffees. Veronica takes one and says thanks, Alice looks a little like she's died, FP paces, and Hermione mutters in Spanish: " _Dios te salve, Maria…"_

It's hours before anyone comes to talk to them, close to midnight by the time a scruffy, tired looking doctor in rimless glasses makes his way into the waiting room to let them know that, in fact, he has nothing to report. There have been some complications, he says vaguely; there's nothing he can tell them other than that. They'll be with Betty and Jughead until the morning, machines beeping and cold hands checking vital signs. They should all go home.

"I'll stay," Hiram says immediately, shaking his head. "You should take off," he tells Fred. "Mija, you should go, too."

Veronica prickles. "If you're staying, I'm staying."

Hermione looks at her, and as if someone has plugged in her power cord, she's back in action, taking charge. "Don't be stubborn, Ronnie," she tells her. "Go get some sleep."

"I'll take her home," Archie volunteers.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," Veronica snaps, short tempered now. "I'm right here."

He shrugs, all innocence. "I know you are."

"Go," says Hermione. "I love you. Sleep." Before she can react either way, her mother's got her arms around her, squeezing tight. "Ronnie," she continues softly, and it occurs to Veronica that one day was never meant to hold so much. "Say a prayer."

...

Back at the Pembrooke, Veronica slams the car door, the sound of it strangely startling. Archie walks her to her door, hesitates as she digs her keys out and gets it open.

"So," he says, standing with his arms crossed. Veronica is half in her house and half out of it. "How are you?"

She shrugs, encumbered by the sudden and complete fatigue swallowing her whole body. "Okay. Tired."

Archie's not satisfied. He doesn't move. "What else?"

"I don't know." Something she can't name. "Out of my mind, maybe. Scared." Everything is so heavy and she feels scared. That's it.

"I can stay with you," he says at the same time she asks,

"Can you stay with me?"

She does not want to go inside this apartment by herself, but also, she doesn't want to be away from Archie. "I'm probably okay," she says, but he interrupts.

"I'll stay in the living room until your parents get home."

Veronica nods, and they go inside. She drops her bag to the floor with an unceremonious thud, and the first thing she does is check to make sure that every single window is locked.

"Hey," Archie says, coming up behind her in the dining room. "Need help?"

She forces a small smile, half a second and gone. She walks across the room and turns on the AC, letting the filtered air in. "Couldn't breathe." Maybe that's the truth, actually, now that she thinks about it. Maybe she hasn't had a decent amount of air in her lungs since yesterday. Could be she's brain-damaged and oxygen-deprived. She sinks down into a chair, exhausted.

"Go put your pajamas on," Archie says, noticing how tired she is. She probably looks like garbage, though she can't exactly bring herself to care. "Are you hungry?"

She shakes her head. "I ate, like, three packs of MMs while we were waiting," she tells him, accepting the hand he offers to help her to her feet.

"I know," Archie says, leading her out of the dining room. "I watched you. It was impressive. You want real dinner, though?"

"Yes. Maybe. I don't know."

"Well, since you feel so strongly about it," he grins. "I'll run and see what's in the fridge. You go take your clothes off."

She rolls her eyes a little and pads down the hall to her room and changes, hastily brushing out her hair. By the time she makes it to the kitchen, Archie has warmed leftovers from tonight's dinner and there's music floating in the air.

"Wanna get tanked?" He pokes his head out from behind the fridge door, holding a bottle of white wine.

Veronica snorts. "I thought you didn't drink wine."

"I don't. But that doesn't mean you can't."

"No thanks," she says, hopping up onto the counter as he replaces it. He passes her her food and they sink into silence for a few minutes. Still, she's glad he's here. Her heartbeat has timed itself to the rhythm of the music, syrupy slow, and that realization is all it takes to send her into a fresh wave of panic. Someone ran Betty and Jughead off the road. What if it's the same person who's threatening her family? What if this is all her fault?

"Hey," Archie says, "cut it out."

She blinks. "Cut what out?"

"You didn't make them crash."

"What?" For one crazy moment she thinks he's actually read her mind, but Archie just shrugs.

"That's what you were doing, right?" he asks, coming to stand in front of where she sits on the counter. "Blaming yourself for what happened?"

She considers denial, decides it's worthless. "Among other things."

"Why?" He whispers. "What is it, Ronnie?"

Her breath stops coming easily. She looks at the wooden box that still sits on the kitchen table, thinks about the knife and the pearls and the pictures and the dolls. She almost tells him, but in the end she jumps off the counter, evading. This day has gone on for years, and she doesn't need anymore dangerous things.

"I think I'm going to try bed," she tells him, putting a safe amount of distance between them, the clean expanse of kitchen tile. "Want me to set you up on the couch?"

Archie raises one dark eyebrow. "I think I can manage."

"Okay, then." They load their plates into the dishwasher. Veronica wipes down the counters. The moon washes in through the window, silver-pale.

...

Veronica isn't sleeping when the phone rings in the middle of the night - just lying in bed and worrying about her friends, thoughts like a freight train hurtling stopless through her brain. She launches herself across the mattress to pick it up. "What?" she says immediately, voice panicky and shrill, demanding. "What? What? Tell me."

"Veronica," her mother says softly, and she thinks she's never been more afraid in all her days on God's green earth. "Veronica. It's all right."

 _It's all right._

Betty and Jughead are okay, she tells her calmly. They came through their surgeries critical but breathing, and now they're stable, and there's nothing to do but let them rest. "I love you," Hermione says before she hangs up, Veronica's hand pale-knuckled and cold around the phone, chin on her knee in the dark. "And whatever else happens, sweetheart - your dad loves you, too."

She hangs up. She worries about what that last sentence from her mother means. She sits silent in the center of the mattress, like it's an island in the middle of the sea.

Finally she gets out of bed.

She opens her door and gasps: There's Archie sitting on the floor in the hallway, head back against the molding and elbows on his knees. He's taken off the shirt he was wearing - it seems like days ago that they kissed in the parking lot of Pop's, all stupid and brave - and now he's in his undershirt. "Hey," he says, suddenly alert, "How are they?"

"Okay, I think. My mom says okay." She squats so they're at eye level, voice quiet. "Whatcha doing?"

Archie shrugs a little. "Keeping watch."

"For intruders?"

"For you," he makes a face. "Sorry if I'm freaking you out. I'm just worried."

"You're not freaking me out."

"I'm freaking me out a little."

Veronica shrugs. "Betty and Jug are okay. And so am I. For now, at least."

Archie smiles. "Was that your mom on the phone?"

She nods. She's not surprised to find him out here, is the truth of it - like somehow this is inevitable, the natural course of things. Maybe he's a homing pigeon. Maybe she's his home. "Do you ever think Riverdale is really not the right place for us?" he asks.

She breathes. "Every day," she whispers. If only he knew. "But where am I going to go?"

"Not you," he says, urgent, like there's something she's not understanding. "Us."

"Us?"

"What if we got out of here?" he asks. "After graduation, I mean. Instead of college… what if we just went?"

Veronica swallows her heart back down into her chest. "Where?"

Archie looks right at her and smiles, huge and simple as a map of the world. "Everywhere," he says.

 _Everywhere_.

"Archie." Right away she thinks of all the places she's never been and all the things she hasn't done yet. She thinks of a road stretching all the way across the country and of all the nights she's spent alone, and when she sees he's still waiting for an answer, she takes a deep breath and braces herself. "I need to tell you something."

A vertical line appears right between his eyebrows. Veronica stands, pulling him up with her. Her heart pounds like it's trying to break free and leave her as she guides him into the kitchen. They stand together at the table and she puts a hand over the wooden box. She focuses on his presence. He smells faintly like soap and the air is warmer near him, like his body is giving off more heat than usual.

"What's inside?" Archie asks.

"A message." She keeps her hand over the box. There's a feeling in her chest like a moth against a windowpane, the desperate scrape of wings. "Well, sort of. More like a threat."

Archie raises his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Veronica sighs and waits. They're quiet as death as they listen to the AC sing its elegy as it hums high in the vents above their heads. She's a little bit afraid of how Archie might react - go off like an improvised explosive, maybe, glass and shrapnel everywhere you look. She swallows the sudden thickness in her throat and slides the top off the box.

Archie is quiet for a moment, but Veronica feels him shift from curious and concerned to downright tempestuous. "What the hell is this?" He asks, voice low. The undertone of fear and alarm makes Veronica's heartbeat kick even faster. "What does the letter say?"

Veronica slams the top back over the box. "I don't know, and it doesn't matter," she says. Also, really, she doesn't want to know what it says, doesn't want one more reason to feel this bone deep terror.

"Veronica-"

"My dad has more security in the lobby," she says. "And I can't leave the house alone anymore."

"Damn right," Archie breathes out. His muscles have all gone rigid, his jaw locked tight. "Ronnie, I swear to God, I'm not letting anything happen to you. I can't- if you-" he breaks off, rubbing a hand hard over his face.

"Hey," she says, moving closer, pressing the length of her body flush against his, burying her face into his chest. "Hey. I'm okay, alright? I'm sorry." He holds her tight.

"Sorry for what?"

Veronica pauses, then pulls back. "Archie," she whispers. "What if the crash was my fault?"

"What?" Archie looks at her, bewildered and indignant. "You think it was a warning from whoever sent the box?"

She shrugs a little, tries to slow her breathing and not sound completely insane. "Maybe."

Archie closes his eyes. "Maybe," he agrees. "And maybe not. Either way, Ronnie, it's not _your_ fault."

"I hope not," she breathes out. She pushes the box away, tries to push her doubts away with it. "Can you come to bed with me?"

Archie nods, immediate.

"You okay?" he asks once she's locked them inside her bedroom, the two of them hidden from the sleeping world.

Veronica nods vaguely. "Mm-hm."

"You sure?"

"I said yes, Archie."

She's always a patchy, haunted sleeper, but tonight Veronica tosses more than usual, tangling the blankets, breathing hard. Archie runs his palm up and down her backbone, trying to quiet her, but it's like she's waiting for something to attack. Like she wants to get up and pace. She feels like a hydrogen bomb. She tries to be very still, but she knows he can feel her entire body tensing, a runner ready to begin a race. Three times, she drifts off only to wake violently a moment later.

Veronica lets Archie hold her, their pulses tapping out a syncopated rhythm, her breathing finally evening out. Her eyes have been closed for a few minutes when he says, "I love you," so quiet, like a prayer whispered into her neck.

She's nearly asleep, edges blurring. "I love you too," she murmurs because it's true. She loves his quick, blistered musician hands and the honest soul he keeps hidden safe beneath his skin, and she loves how she is still, every day, learning him. She loves his silly, secret goofy side and the way he has of making her feel like a sunset, just from the way he looks at her face. She loves Archie Andrews so much that sometimes she can't sit still for the fullness of it.

"Go to sleep now," he whispers, and she does.


	3. Chapter 3

They drive too fast to the hospital the next day, a change of clothes and bagels for Veronica's parents on the seat between them. Hiram and Hermione and Alice and Hal and FP and Fred - they all look like hell, but Betty and Jughead look alright, considering. Jug is groggy and sallow and Betty's got an IV taped to the back of her hand. They both have bruises and deep cuts on their visible skin.

Veronica has fifty things to tell Betty but none of them say anything, and she sits on the edge of the bed while they watch the _Today Show,_ an incredibly boring segment about finding the best Spring produce. It makes her want strawberries. She fidgets. She thinks of how shocked Betty will be when she finds out Veronica might have been the cause of the crash, or if that's just the kind of bad luck she expects from being friends with her after all this time.

She watches as Betty scribbles on a notepad, ideas for her next Blue & Gold article. It makes her feel weirdly endeared, because Betty refuses to give up on the newspaper business - which isn't dead yet, but is definitely on life support - and for the past six months, she's refused to give up on Veronica, too.

She looks at Jughead then, who she's never been as close to - she and him are like two shooting stars on totally different trajectories - but her whole body stiffens at the thought of him lying dead on the side of the road.

"You two scared me," she tells them finally. She wants to say _I'm sorry_ but doesn't know where to start. "Don't do it again."

"We'll try our best," Jughead says, nodding and leaning back against the pillows, the skin beneath his eyes pale and gray. "Mrs. Cooper already read us the riot act."

"Did they find out who ran you off the road?" Archie asks. Veronica feels suspended in space.

Betty shakes her head and looks at Veronica. "No," she says, "but V, your dad was in here a little while ago asking us all sorts of questions about what happened. He said he's going to hand it all off to the police." She shrugs. "It felt a little weird, though."

Veronica's heart lands somewhere around her shoes. "Oh my God," she says, feeling a headache coming on. "I'm sorry."

Betty dismisses that particular sentiment, says Veronica didn't do anything wrong so what is she apologizing for?

Veronica presses her lips together and tries as hard as she can to release the tension in her shoulders, to relax. Still, she's not exactly at ease and the hospital isn't offering a whole lot by way of distraction. By eight o'clock, her mother steps into the room and asks Veronica to come with her.

"What is it?" she hisses as Hermione leads her down the ghostly halls. She doesn't get a glance, much less a response. They round a corner and her mother pulls her through a door and into the chapel. Below the cross, a taciturn Virgin Mary holds court at the alter, a missing chunk of plaster where her veil should meet her dress. Hiram is standing there illuminated in the orange glow, an effigy or idol. For all the times she's seen him in church, it's never stopped feeling like something stilted or forced, as if someone like him could never belong in a place like this.

Veronica walks down the carpeted aisle and joins him. She runs her thumb over the statue, waiting. Hermione prays to Mary for virtually everything and swears that she answers every time, but if either this mother or Veronica's have any advice to dispense, at the moment they are holding their tongues.

"I saw them last night," Hiram says solemnly, looking at the statue and not at Veronica. "The people who have been threatening us."

It's so sudden she thinks she's misheard him. For a second she only stares at him, recalibrating, but then he continues.

"They were the ones who caused your friends to crash. As a warning of what they believe they're capable of doing to you." It looks as if it's physically painful for him to say it, as if the words taste like gravel or bone. "They said they want us to hand over Lodge Industries and move out of Riverdale."

Veronica thinks maybe she's turning into a statue too, cement for lungs and plaster for skin. "Who are they?" she asks on an exhale.

"Lodge Industries investors."

"Okay." She doesn't know what to say. Her intuition was right. It was her fault. She has to tell Betty. She has to tell Jughead. She has to tell - oh, _God_.

Archie had said it himself, she tries to reason - " _Either way, Ronnie, it's not your fault._ " But his saying that in the dead of night without confirmation or assurance is different than how he might react to the vindicated truth; that his two best friends in the entire world nearly died because of her.

"Veronica," her father says. He clenches his hands together tight, the skin going taut around his knuckles. Veronica feels guilty. Not for anything she actually did, but for what she isn't doing. Which is protecting the people she cares about. And answering her father. "We want to send you to New York to stay with your abuelita for awhile."

That makes Veronica's head snap up. "I'm sorry?" She says, and her voice sounds irrationally shrill even to her own ears, the noise reverberating through the acoustics in the chapel. "No. I won't go," she declares with instantaneous finality, not caring that she's showing blatant disobedience right in front of Jesus and Mary. She shakes her head. "No."

"We need to keep you safe," Hiram argues, "and that won't be possible when we're fighting what could quite literally become an all out war."

"So you think the solution is to make me disappear? We might as well be saying, _'your scare tactics worked.'_ I'm not leaving, Daddy, and if you send me to Abuelita's, I'll run away and come right back to Riverdale." She shifts her gaze back to the statue. "Let me help," she says. "This is my-"

"Absolutely not," Hiram snaps, every muscle locked. "You can stay in Riverdale, fine. We'll assign a bodyguard to you at all times. But you will _not_ be involved in the negotiations."

Veronica side eyes him. There's adrenaline coursing through her and she feels like she could run a marathon. "Negotiations?"

"And whatever else we have to do to protect our family and our livelihood."

Hermione is staring up at the Virgin Mary, her gaze fixated and her expression somber. "We're going to battle, Veronica," she says smoothly, "for you. For the company. To ensure the safety of our entire family." Finally she looks at her daughter, eyes boring holes into her. Veronica thinks she might actually throw up, right here on the velvet carpet in the hospital chapel. "You need to think about what needs to be done to ensure the safety of your friends. And," she says frankly, "Archie."

"If you're with your abuelita, it's likely that these terrorists would be less inclined to make examples out of them," Hiram adds.

That makes Veronica explode. "Give up Lodge Industries!" She exclaims, and her parents look at her like she's got three heads. "These people tried to kill my friends! They almost succeeded! Why aren't you taking them seriously?!"

"We _are_ taking them seriously, Veronica-"

" _Don't._ "

That stops them. It stops her too, as a matter of fact, like there's no further explanation required, and the entire chapel is suddenly silent. Veronica is scared out of her mind, but even more than that, she's angry. She feels it pushing up from somewhere deep inside of her, red and powerful.

"You haven't cared about my feelings or asked me how I was doing in _years_ ," she tells her father, piercing. She thinks of broken dams, walls caving in. "You don't talk to me. No one talks to me. _About_ me, maybe, but maybe not, even. I wouldn't know, because this is the first time in my life that you've told me something significant." She glances at Hermione, her gaze darting like a cornered animal. "So, you know, tell your investors I said thanks for getting me into the club."

"Veronica-" her mother says sharply, but she ignores her, looking at her father instead. This is crazy - like something out of a melodrama - but the truth is she's just getting started. Already she feels more powerful than she has in months.

"I'm not a moron," she says, bristling. "I've made mistakes, but I'm not generally stupid. You've made it pretty clear that that's how you see me, and that's fine, but I can't just sit here and put on a show and… _pretend_ anymore. I've been pretending for years." She pauses for a second, looks at her mother whose eyes are hard and angry. "And now you're choosing your company over _my_ life and the lives of _my_ friends!"

"Veronica," says Hiram. His face has gone dark as a tomato, his eyebrows drawn together in a thick line. "Calm down."

"I _can't_ ," she shoots back, but even as the words come out she can feel her voice start to break. God, she doesn't want to cry - crying now is going to make her look crazy, is going to undermine everything she's trying to say - but she can't help it. She's so hugely tired of carrying all of this inside her, all her guilt and anger and loneliness. She can't do it anymore. It's too much. "I'm sorry if I disappoint you, Daddy, and I'm sorry I don't feel the same loyalty to Lodge Industries that you do and that you think I'm a liability and an idiot and every other awful thing," she's sobbing now, and her mother's lovely face is blurry and distorted through her tears. "And maybe I deserve it and maybe I don't but the point is that my loyalty lies with _the people I love_. Innocent people. And I don't know what I did wrong when I was twelve years old and started wondering about the business, and then you stopped caring about me, stopped checking on me, stopped wanting to be around me, but I wish you would just forgive me already. How can you be my parents and not forgive me?" She shakes her head, and there's not a single thing she can do to calm down. "I mean it! Why did you only love me when I was blind?"

She turns on her mother. "And _ensure the safety of Archie and my friends_? Really? Like the answer isn't obvious? Like the answer is anything other than the fact that _you aren't taking these investors seriously_? And don't try to tell me you are, because if you were, you would have given up Lodge Industries hours ago." She pushes past them, heading for the door and into a blinding shock of light without another word.

…

Archie is in the waiting room when she bursts into it, aiming for the exit. The sight of him could make her jump out of her skin if she wasn't still so heated from the ordeal in the chapel.

"Veronica," he begins, standing up, alarm and concern etched across every single one of his features when he sees her. "What's-"

She swipes at her eyes. "Can I have the car keys?" She asks. "Can you get a ride home with your dad?" It feels selfish to ask, but she needs to get far away from this place, and she doesn't want Archie to get hurt by the storm erupting inside her.

Archie holds out the keys, but says, "Veronica, whatever happened, please talk to me about it. Or let me-"

She takes the keys and makes for the doors, and he stays glued to her heels across the expanse of the parking lot. He catches the driver's side door just as she's about to slam it, and she grimaces.

"I almost took your fingers off."

"It's okay. Got quick reflexes."

She blinks and sits back, and he opens the door wider, maneuvers himself in between so she can't try and close it again. "Let me come with you, okay?"

She shakes her head, sniffling. "This is a long ride."

"That's okay."

"I'm doing the highway with no destination."

"I don't mind."

Her insides feel like they've been hollowed out. She doesn't know how things got so out of control. She shrugs and wipes her face, jerks her head toward the passenger side. "Then get in," she tells him.

They're ten minutes onto the freeway before either of them says anything, and when he does his voice is quiet, the ocean at low tide. "Did something happen with your mom and dad?"

"I am very, very disappointing to my family," she says quietly. She concentrates on the road and tries to sound collected, matter-of-fact, resigned. She's humiliated to have cried the way she did, tries to reason that it was a long time coming but can't even empathize with herself. "And they're disappointing to me, actually. They want to send me to New York to stay with my grandmother until everything blows over. They think I'll be safer."

Archie shakes his head. "They want you in New York with no one to protect you except her?" He scrubs at his hair with restless hands.

"It might put you in less danger," she says calmly, "if the people who sent the box try to come after you to make a point." She had to say it, but still she tries to shutter the notion out, like maybe if she keeps driving forever, nothing will ever be able to hurt him. If Archie died, the sun would go out. Period.

"It's not my life that's in danger," Archie refutes. "I'm going to protect you, Veronica, and you shouldn't be worrying about me."

"How could I not?" She whispers. She almost tells him that her father confirmed the cause of Betty and Jughead's accident. Keeping that secret is like having hot burning coals under her bare feet, though it's been less than half an hour. "I can't do anything that puts your life at risk. I wouldn't be able to take it, and your family-" she trails off, swallowing, afraid she'll start crying again.

Archie reaches over to hold her hand. "You're my family, too."

They drive for over an hour, not really talking. Archie hums under his breath. It feels peaceful to be in the car with him, steadying, like he and Veronica are in their own little world, totally unbothered by the one rolling by outside. She knows eventually she'll have to go back and face the music,but she finally feels something akin to calm, and Archie's breathing beside her, and for awhile it's nice to pretend.

Eventually, she pulls into his driveway and they say passing greetings to Fred as they walk by him at the entryway. They go up to his room and Veronica listens to him play his guitar, the notes pouring out like rain from the heavens. Her eyes burn and she presses the heel of her hand against her forehead as she tries to forget about what happened. Forgetting feels like a constant goal. She hopes there will come a day she'll actually want to remember.

After awhile, she touches his hands, makes him put his guitar down. She pulls him onto the bed. The sun is setting outside and she kisses him, tugs at the hem of his shirt, which makes him pull back to look at her. His eyes turn a deep topaz color, birthstones in the dark. "Are you sure?" he asks, and his voice is low.

"Yes." She's surprised at the steadiness of her own voice. His fingers clench and unclench; she takes one of his fists and forces it open, places her own hand inside. "I'm sure." Outside, through the open window, she can hear rain starting to fall. Her spine hits the sheets softly.

Archie hums around her temple and the curve of his neck feels familiar. She gets her arms around him to keep from flying apart at her joints and they're holding onto each other like it's the last day when all of a sudden, all at once, Archie goes completely still.

"Tell me this isn't your way of saying goodbye," he orders quietly. He's not moving at all.

"Hmm?" she says into his shoulder. She looks up. He's balancing on his forearms as he hovers over her. "What?"

"Tell me you're not thinking you're going to die and this is - you're not going to die, Veronica. Just - tell me," he repeats, and in the dark flash of his eyes she can see this is very important to him, some kind of promise he's made to himself. He doesn't want her to make him do this without saying the words. "Ronnie." He's almost pleading. "Say it."

 _Don't do this to me_ , she wants to say. "Archie," she murmurs, thumb skating across his eyebrow, trying to stall. "Come on."

He looks right at her. "Say it."

Her heart is knocking away inside her chest. "I can't," she whispers finally. "I'm sorry."

He closes his eyes for a second and she braces, fully expecting him to roll away from her. But then:

"Okay," Archie says on a long, quiet exhale. She can feel his ribs expand and contract against her chest. "It's okay."

"We can stop if you want," she offers, head swimming. "I get it if you want to stop."

Archie smiles down at her, quick and vanishing. "I don't want to stop."

So they keep going.

It's vaguely heartbreaking to do this after all that's happened, the telltale hitches in his breathing and the way her entire body tenses, the things they haven't done since everything went to hell forty eight hours ago. The back of his knee is warm when she tucks her foot there. His hand is cool when he wraps it around her wrists on the pillow above her head. He looks at her the whole entire time.

When it's over they lie on their sides facing each other for what might be days, streetlamps and the sound of the wind in the trees outside the window. She feels the weight of his gaze like something physical, a sheen of sweat coating her skin. Finally she can't hold it in anymore; just breathing is like a hurricane. "Seattle," she says.

He raises one eyebrow. "Seattle?"

"I think ' _everywhere_ ' should start in Seattle."

He smiles at her, and they both turn onto their backs, their bodies pressed together as closely as possible.

Veronica breathes in and Archie joins her, and he can see her smiling even though he's looking straight up at the ceiling. They exhale together, then inhale together, exhale, inhale, in, out, until not even the walls of their homes remember what's happened this week.

"Seattle it is," he tells her like a certainty, and they fall asleep after that.

...

When Veronica gets home her father is in the kitchen cooking rice and chicken, skinless and low-fat. "Hi," she says.

Her father nods at her, impassive.

"I was at Archie's," she tells him.

"So I heard," he nods again.

"I spent the night," she continues.

"So I heard." Mother of God, he nods a third time.

 _Oh, come off it,_ she almost snaps. Instead she takes a deep breath, steadying. "All right," she says, surrendering. No one in her family is much of an emoter, but her father can out-silence anybody, including Veronica. "Can we address this situation?"

"What's that?"

That makes her mad. "You know what," she says, an edge in her voice she can't totally file down. "Everything we talked about at the hospital yesterday. All of this."

Her father sets the knife down and it clatters loudly into the basin, making her jump. "Veronica, I don't see what there is to talk about. You know how your mother and I feel. We can try our best to keep you safe, but ultimately, you make your own choices." This morning's paper sits on the table, and he opens it to the international news. The wooden box is gone. "There's food," he says, without looking up.

"Okay," she says finally, and slowly leaves the room.

Not so long ago, in her English class, they read about the Renaissance and how, for a long time afterward, it was almost impossible for Italian artists to make anything. All that history already there, they figured. What was the point?


	4. Chapter 4

" _This nightmare will be over soon_ ," Hiram swears to Veronica before he and Hermione get in a car with Andre. They're going to church, then to the airport to meet with the top dogs of the coup in New York. To negotiate.

Hiram sets a hand on his daughter's shoulder and shuts his eyes to silently pray over her just before they leave. She can't blame him: his own parents were deeply involved in the church, and he was practically half raised by the nuns in the local chapel. He fully intended to become a priest until he met Hermione; he confesses every other Friday and keeps a Saint Christopher medal tucked inside his suit jacket. In his outward life he's deadly dangerous, but his heart and soul are that of the most serious of altar boys, and the fact that he didn't ship Veronica off to some convent this week is probably a testament to the mercy of God, as far as she's concerned.

Finally they leave. She feels trapped and anxious in the Pembrooke by herself, a ghost haunting its empty rooms. She tries to sketch out some clothing designs for a few minutes, but finally she gives up and stops tormenting herself - the blank paper like a sweeping accusation from the person she used to be in New York, all the things she said she was going to do and didn't. For a second she's back at Park Avenue on the night her father was arrested, every careful plan for her future scattered like hayseed in a dry wind.

Still - Riverdale has been better for her than she ever imagined possible, all things considered. Archie makes her feel like all the mistakes she's made are okay, like all the things she hates about herself - her callousness, her inability to fix her family's morality, the way her mind jumps immediately to judgement; like the mean thing to say is always on the tip of her tongue, and she has to swallow that poison down so often she thinks she may actually choke on it - are redeemable. Like maybe one day she can actually be a good person. When she's with him, she feels like she can push all her anger, fear, and guilt into a tiny room, turn off the lights, and close the door.

His proposition that they cut their losses and just go after graduation makes sense to her. Even before he said it, she remembers thinking how strange it was that she and Archie were headed to the same University as every other high schooler in the state - how _pedestrian,_ as if the two of them should be headed for pastures way greener than keg parties and freshman seminars on the history of Western civilization. They should be haunting cafés in New York or playing open mics in California, speeding down clear expanses of highway in the middle of the country, with no particular destination in mind.

The idea that she may be killed and never get a chance to do all those things - become good, explore the world - makes her feel like she's shriveling up on the inside. She stares at the wall and decides she needs to get out of this apartment _now._ So she pulls the keys to her father's second car from the hook by the door.

The roads are pretty empty at this hour, the darkened silhouettes of maple trees studding the landscape and the red glow of scattered tail lights. The windshield fogs up a bit, and she swipes at it with the flat of her palm as she pulls into Pop's. When she gets out, she watches a plane flying overhead, blinking lights, larger than life, all of that coming and going and her just exactly where she's been for the last six months.

Inside she orders fries without event and stares around at the diner, restless. She drinks water by the counter. She pulls out her phone and sees that it's dead, slides it back into her bag - her whole life a holding pattern, some variation on _sorry, try again later_.

Finally she goes back to the car and mentally curses herself for forgetting to lock the door as she gets in. Veronica shivers. Sitting here alone in the car isn't really her brightest move, and she shifts, out of sorts and aching. She doubts anyone would try something in the parking lot of the most popular diner in town, but she peers around anyway. Nothing but a handful of parked cars. Still, her skin prickles like someone is watching her. She locks the doors.

At the other end of the lot, headlights suddenly blare and a van's engine growls to life, and instead of moving toward the exit, it turns into the row of cars where Veronica is parked. It gets closer and closer, and her hands shake as she grabs her bag and digs deep down to find the keys.

No go. The van stops just a few spaces away from her and she gasps for breath as she reaches for the overhead light and pushes the switch. Nothing. In desperation, she overturns her bag on the passenger seat and rifles through her papers and wallet and whatever the hell else she's got in there until her fingers finally connect with cool metal. She fumbles with the keys, trying to push them into the ignition.

Success on the third try. The car roars to life.

When she looks up, the van is gone.

* * *

By the time she gets home, her breathing is almost back to normal. If her father's investors are trying to send her into cardiac arrest, they're well on their way. All she wants to do is call Betty for some tea and sympathy - minus the tea - but considering she's made her best friend intentionally oblivious to the target on her back, that conversation is a nonstarter. The minute she gets into the apartment, she hears her dad's voice boom, "Veronica, get in here! Now!"

 _Great._ She makes her way toward the kitchen, past the multitude of black and white family portraits - her mother's work all up and down the wall. When Veronica was a little girl she used to let her take pictures with her heavy 35mm, showed her how to develop them in the darkroom she'd had set up in their powder room on Park Avenue. She remembers feeling so nervous to mess up around her mother that her hands would shake as she tried to hold the camera, a whole roll of blurry, focusless shots.

In the kitchen, her mother is glaring down at her vodka and tonic and avoiding Veronica's eyes. Hiram's stormy gaze, on the other hand, has no problem latching onto hers. "How is it that I have to find out from Archie Andrews that my own daughter isn't picking up her phone, isn't in the apartment, and hasn't told anyone what she's doing, which, apparently includes stealing the car and going out _alone_ , forcing us to race home from church and miss the flight that's supposed to take us to critical negotiations, just to ensure she isn't _dead_ -"

Veronica interrupts. "I was afraid to be here alone," she says, "and I didn't want to make things worse by calling you."

" _Veronica_." His voice rises suddenly, and she thinks of Moses on Mount Sinai, the voice of God and the burning bush. "Worse would be having something happen to you. How can your mother and I protect you if we don't know what's going on?"

Hermione's hand trembles as she takes a big sip of her drink. "You wanted us to take the investors seriously. That's what we're trying to do, and now you pull something like this. Did anything strange happen while you were out?" she demands.

"No," she lies. Her stomach clenches and she leans against the counter for support.

Hiram pinches the bridge of his nose. "We live in a sick society, Veronica. If anything happens, you tell us immediately, even if you don't think it matters. Understood?"

"Yes," she says, even as she wonders how keeping anyone safe is possible.

"Check the security alarm and the locks every time you enter the house. Be careful when you leave. Always lock the doors and windows."

"Daddy, I know all that." She tries not to sound impatient, even as guilt works its way through her about forgetting to lock the car at Pop's.

"Text me every day when you get to school, when you're leaving, and when you get home, so I know you're okay. Are we clear?"

"Crystal."

"I don't know what's going on with you, Veronica, but I'm telling you right now, you need to put a stop to it before you get killed. You're on very thin ice here. Now call Archie. He's out there looking for you."

" _What_?" Veronica's stomach drops, but before she has time to go ballistic, the doorbell is ringing incessantly, and she races to open it, her father attached to her heels. Archie comes bursting in, looking worn and wound.

"My God, Ronnie," he breathes, and then he's got his arms around her, holding her tight. His shirt is warm and soft against her cheek. She feels herself calm down as soon as he touches her, lets herself sink into it, his mouth at her temple.

Hiram allows them to go to her room; " _Maybe he can talk some sense into you._ "

She shuts the door behind her and looks at her bed but can't bring herself to sit down. Her whole body is shaking and he runs his palm up and down her arm - she feels tense from the tips of her ears all the way down to her ankles.

"Something happened while you were out, right?" Archie asks, looking at her with concern, and with that lingering hint of panic he had when he got here.

She's surprised he's noticed, actually, that he's tuned-in enough to be able to tell. She's not used to that kind of attention. She's a little disbelieving, as if there's some invisible string keeping she and Archie tethered to each other, and it's tightening, a slipknot hooked around her wrist.

She shakes her head. "No," she bluffs, eyes a little wide, "I'm fine." Then she says, "Archie-" and opens her mouth to tell him the truth, but when her answer comes, it's from somewhere deep inside her, a place she didn't even know existed, some small hidden place that wouldn't even show up on a map. "I think I need to leave Riverdale by myself."

Um.

" _What_?" For a second he looks totally and completely baffled, like she's speaking a language he's never heard before, staring at her like he's been blindsided. And why wouldn't he be? Fifteen seconds ago she said she was fine.

As soon as it's out of her mouth though she knows it's true, like whatever she's trying to do here, trying to outrun death, isn't working. Like she's been trying to force a key inside a lock that doesn't fit. "I'm sitting here waiting for them to kill me."

"Veronica, that's not going to happen," Archie says, his voice rising just a little. He pushes his hand through his hair in frustration, and she notices it's gotten slightly longer. It occurs to her, not for the first time, that things change whether you're around to notice them or not.

Veronica is pacing now, thinking about how the investors tried to kill her friends. _You don't understand_ , she wants to tell him. It's so much bigger than just a threat on _her_ life. It's all of them. It was Betty and Jughead just a couple days ago. But how _could_ he understand, really? She's never bothered to explain, and even now, she keeps her feelings clutched close.

The worst part is, she can see it. She can see herself doing all the right things, answering Archie's calls and locking the front door and keeping her guard up until her parents do the wrong thing and their investors kill him as another warning. Make it look like an accident. Make her entire world crumble to ashes right in front of her. She can see it all laid out, neat and small and suffocating, and it makes her want to scream like nothing else she has ever experienced.

"There's no other solution," she manages, voice shaking. God, already she's thinking there's an outside chance she's the stupidest person alive. "My parents met the people who sent the box. They're investors in Lodge Industries. They made Betty and Jughead crash."

Archie looks at her for a moment like she's wrecked him. A tiny part of her hopes he'll walk away, forget she ever existed, because at least then he'll be safe. For a minute he's silent, but then he just says, "Tell me what happened tonight."

She closes her eyes hard. Finally, she's done playing Lone Ranger. She fills him in on what happened at Pop's and watches as his eyebrows shoot up so fast she thinks they might be in danger of springing off his head entirely.

He cards his fingers through his hair again. "Why didn't you answer my calls, Veronica?"

"My phone died," she says crisply. "And I didn't know you were coming over." She stares up at the ceiling and now it's his turn to pace. She tracks his orbit out of the corner of her eye, back and forth.

"Have you thought about finishing this semester from home?" he asks. "Where you'll be safe? Or at least until this is over? Because running off on your own is the opposite of the right solution."

"Archie, the thought of spending all my time in this tomb of a house while everyone else is at school or work is more horrifying than dealing with my assassins."

"Damn it, Veronica," Archie says, suddenly explosive. He looks like he's possibly considering breaking something.

She pushes back her tears and her voice shakes. "I won't spend my life locked up, figuratively or literally. I won't do it. Period." She wipes at her nose with a forearm.

He swallows hard, a vein pulsing in his neck. He looks at a spot above her head. "You should have answered the phone."

"I told you, my phone-"

"Do you know how scared I was?" Archie's jaw is quivering, and he suddenly looks dangerously close to tears. "Are you deliberately trying to get yourself killed?"

Oh.

Veronica's stomach drops.

He swallows a bit like she's defeated him, and all at once she's surprised by how it doesn't feel like a victory at all. But before she has a chance to comfort him or apologize, he's brushing past her and leaving, so fast, like maybe she's on fire and she's just too stupid to notice and save herself.

She tries to keep her reaction as neutral as humanly possible and feels certain she's made things so much worse. She has a midterm in English tomorrow. Before she started at Riverdale High, she imagined the class would be full of lively, sophisticated conversation about the great writers of the last few generations; instead the lecture is delivered by a fleshy middle-aged teacher who's not so much boring as he is blatantly _bored_. He always eyes Veronica with vague pity through an owly pair of glasses and periodically administers multiple choice quizzes she's fairly certain he's printing off the internet. " _You are my penance for a misspent life_ ," he'd announced on the first day of school, before assigning _A Raisin in the Sun_ and two books by John Updike and pretty much washing his hands of his students completely.

Veronica hears Archie slam his car door shut on the street down below, hears the truck engine roar to life and listens to him drive away. She grabs a textbook and sits down to study, if only to distract herself from the tears pooling in her eyes.

* * *

Archie doesn't believe in gut feelings - doesn't believe that mysterious, universal forces conspire to thrum through his body and alert him to dangers that have not yet formed. It's bullshit. That's what he believes.

So when he wakes up and his chest is in knots of tension and anxiety, he tries not to think about it too much. But what happens at school that day makes him rethink his opinion about gut feelings for the rest of his life.

It's a pipe bomb. It goes off in the student lounge, where Veronica is standing still and calm, the first of her friends to arrive. Betty and Jughead are coming back today. There are a few other people around, but none that she knows.

When it happens, it happens quickly. Instantly. No time to scream, or see her life flash before her eyes, or anything she might imagine happening in a scenario like this. All she sees is shrapnel hurtling toward her like the angel of death on speed. Her line of vision hurtling down toward the floor.

Then the sounds. Metal splintering into a thousand pieces. Invisible force knocking into her chest. Her head slamming against something solid. Hard.

Finally, a shuddering stop. So dizzy. Everything around her swims. Distortion. She lets her heavy head rest against the ground and closes her eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

The blame is quickly pinned on the Southside Serpents, who vehemently deny any involvement. " _Look what I found in psycho Jones' backpack,"_ Reggie says, holding up a folded piece of paper. " _A diagram. Instructions for making this exact kind of bomb."_ Or, well, Archie would learn later on that Reggie said that. But in the moment, he isn't concerned with Reggie. Isn't anywhere near him, in fact - he's in the truck, speeding after the ambulance carrying Veronica.

Archie feels like a hostage going haywire from sheer fear and panic as he paces the waiting room. When Betty and Jughead were hospitalized, he was just scared. But with Veronica behind closed doors, he thinks he may claw out of his skin.

Hiram and Hermione are trying desperately to get out of New York, to get back to Riverdale, but there are complications. Either way, they're not here, though they might as well be breathing down Archie's neck the way everyone's talking about them, wondering why it's taking so long for them to change their flight. The waiting room is full, the stuffy heat of packed bodies overcoming the industrial air conditioning.

He's surrounded by pretty much everyone he cares about except for the person who matters the most because she's busy possibly _dying_ , and the embrace that Betty and Jughead wrap him in should be comforting and familiar, but instead it feels like being in a dream where he's someplace he recognizes but it looks strangely different, everything just a degree or two off from true north. He extricates himself, doesn't feel like being touched. All he wants is for no one to talk to him for the foreseeable future.

He imagines what might have happened at school today if nothing had gone wrong, if there had never been any investors threatening Veronica's life. If he hadn't yelled at her and left without saying he loved her or cared about her or making sure she was okay; instead he accused her of trying to get herself killed when she must have been terrified, and _of course_ now that might be the last thing he ever gets to say to her. But if none of that had happened, she might have greeted him with the smile she seems to reserve only for him, and he would have felt like he was weightless when she would have kissed him, because that's what happens when Veronica Lodge turns her kinetic energy on him; it's like he's standing in a puddle of sun. It's one of the reasons he loves her so much.

He has no clue how to go on without her, and more than that, he has absolutely no desire to learn.

The morning melts by, as does every stray thought Archie has ever had about anything other than how desperately he needs Veronica. He knows the blankness of his expression is making everyone wonder if there's anything beating and alive beneath it at all, but he can't even answer that question himself.

Eventually Jughead nudges him. "How are you holding up?"

Archie blinks at him, distracted, still gazing at the double doors leading into the ER. "I'm not."

Jughead nods like _that's fair,_ then says "Archie, I promise you - this wasn't the Serpents."

Archie gets a bad taste in his mouth. He knows it wasn't the Serpents. He knows exactly who did this. "Are they really trying to pin the blame on you, Jug?"

Jughead scowls. "There's no evidence other than that stupid planted diagram. And my alibi is solid." He looks at Archie then, his expression softening. "She's gonna be okay, Arch."

Archie swallows and sits back in his unforgivingly hard plastic chair. "Veronica and I had… _a talk_ last night."

"The _I know you're really Catholic but this is where babies come from_ talk?" Jughead tries to lighten the mood, blue eyes going wide.

Archie can't even muster a smile. "I was mean to her." His shoulders drift up toward his ears like he hadn't wanted to admit that and he's annoyed Jughead got it out of him. He stares straight ahead, not a hint of anything to reveal what he's thinking to the world. He thinks he might spend the rest of his life in a sinkhole of guilt and confusion and sadness. Thinks there's no limit to the ways he's managed to fail Veronica since they met.

Jughead looks at him sympathetically. "Archie, you know it's-"

"Archie Andrews?" A doctor finally pushes through the doors and comes out to speak to them, and when he stands, he's so drained he feels boneless, barely able to hold up his own weight, but then the doctor says, "Ms. Lodge is stable and awake. She's asking for you," and he stumbles after him down a maze of blinding hallways until he reaches Veronica's room.

Everything about his girl is all edge, and he would never use the words, _weak_ or _breakable_ to describe her, but lying there in the hospital bed… Veronica looks nothing but innocent. Any impulse he has to scream "What the fuck?" or "What happened?" or "Are you all right?" vanishes, and for a long moment, all they do is rest in each other's silence. In each other's confused, exhausted, _what are we doing in this room_ eyes.

He barely registers anything else about her appearance, except that she's _there_. And then she's in his arms. It's not the most comfortable position because she's laying in a hospital bed and he's perched on the edge of it, but it doesn't matter. With one hand buried in her hair and an arm wrapped around her waist, he plans on never letting go again. He thinks about eternities; the small ones confined in the space of a kiss and the longer ones bookended by raising a family. Archie wants all of them with Veronica, can't imagine them without her.

"I love you," he mumbles against her jaw, repeats the words against her cheek and her ear and her lips as her body melts against his. She smells all wrong; smells like dust and blood and antiseptic, but she feels small and strong and warm like she always does.

She's in hospital issue scrubs that are overlarge on her, but they're clean, unlike her hair and skin. She's bruised, dirty, bloody. There's a long bandage down the underside of her left forearm, from her elbow to the inside of her wrist. She has another under her right cheek; the skin around each is stained with iodine.

He squeezes her hand, like the tighter he holds her, the more confidently he can guarantee she's alive.

"Sorry that was a long wait for you," she murmurs, clearly exhausted. "Took me awhile to wake up. The drugs they gave me-"

"Shh," he hushes her softly, kisses the back of her knuckles. "I would've waited my entire life."

She smiles a little and sniffs. "Meet anyone interesting in the waiting room?"

He's not sure exactly why they're having this conversation, but it occurs to him that he doesn't really care: he'll talk to Veronica about anything she wants. "Didn't exactly feel like chatting. One guy tried to talk to me. He said his name was Animal; and that his real name was Peter, but that you can't be in a rock-and-roll band with a name like Peter, or something."

"Sure you can," Veronica counters, slitting her eyes open to look at him. She's still holding his hand. "What about Pete Townshend?"

"Okay, well-"

"Pete Seeger."

"Yeah, but-"

"Peter, Paul, and Mary."

"Peter, Paul, and Mary were not a rock-and-roll band!" Archie exclaims, laughing.

"But they sang about drugs." Veronica is clearly enjoying herself. "So if Animal's argument is that people named Peter are too uptight for drug-type singing, then Peter of Peter, Paul, and Mary clearly illustrates otherwise."

They lapse into a brief silence during which Archie is working up the guts to talk about what happened between them last night, but Veronica looks at him like she can tell what he's thinking and she doesn't like the trajectory the conversation is about to take; so she bends it to her will.

"Talk about something else," she says, staring right at him. "I don't want to think about the explosion, or the investors, or any of it."

Archie squeezes her hand again, looks at her, thinking for a moment. He wants to apologize, but he also doesn't want her to feel more stressed or afraid than she already does. "What does your name mean?"

"Huh?"

"' _Veronica_.' What does 'Veronica' mean?"

" _She who brings victory,_ " Veronica replies. "And also, _true image_."

Archie nods his approval and smiles a little. "Ever look me up?"

She did, actually, mere days after she met him, but she's not about to spill the beans on that one. "Not yet."

...

Doctors proclaim she has a concussion before deciding she's going to be better off at home, where she can rest. Hiram and Hermione are still out of town, and the earliest flight they can get is scheduled for the morning after next, and Archie will be damned if Veronica goes back to the Pembrooke alone. So he drives her back to his house and helps her walk up the driveway, up the stairs, down the hall into his bedroom. It takes forever, because every step hurts her and they have to go slow and take breaks.

Veronica looks warily at the bathroom. She needs a shower, but she's not sure she can manage it.

"Come on, I'll help you," Archie says, reading her mind.

They make the trip into the bathroom. Archie twists the tap on and as the water heats up, he helps Veronica undress. The entire length of her right side is mottled with bruises, her hips and thigh so deeply purple the skin is almost black.

She clutches the counter for support as he undresses. "Let me know if I'm hurting you," he says, leading her into the shower.

"I can't really feel any pain right now; they gave me something for it at the hospital," she explains. "But I can't… I can't make my body move like it should, either."

"Just try to stay upright and I'll do all the work," he promises, reaching for the soap. The dressings on Veronica's wounds are waterproof, so that's one less thing to worry about, though she does pitch back and forth a few times, making Archie reach out and steady her. Still, it's not much of a struggle for him, at least until he needs to wash her hair.

"I can't close my eyes," she frets. "It feels like I'm falling. Or spinning."

"Just hang on to me, okay?" he says, reaching out for her. "I won't let you fall."

"You'll catch me if I do," she mumbles, and it makes him wonder if she's a little stoned from the drugs or if it's just the effects of the concussion.

Veronica still keeps her eyes open as long as she can, looking at a spot on the wall over Archie's shoulder as he scrubs her hair clean of dirt and dried blood. When he needs to rinse it, she closes the little distance between them, resting her head on his chest. They stay like that for a long time, just holding each other under the spray.

By the time they get out they're both water-logged and wrinkly, and Veronica looks even more exhausted than she did before she got in the shower, though at least she's clean now. Archie scowls as he keeps Veronica upright while she tugs on a pair of leggings she'd left at his place ages ago; they seem more effort than they're worth right now. And of course when he helps her into the loose tunic-style she sleeps in when she's over at his house he puts it on her backwards at first, but after those minor bumps in the road they end up in his bed in a tangle of limbs, their breath soft in the dark. The world outside is quiet, like all the wind has gone still.

That night, Veronica falls asleep thinking about God. Even when things go wrong, she's always believed in holy power, and though her religion is incidental to whatever is going on here, her faith has been written into the very cells of her DNA since the day she was born, when every member of her family crowded into a hospital room to pray over her life. To thank God for her life. She wonders about the events that have crisscrossed to bring her to this place. How much of it is fate, and how much of it is her fault? How much control does she really have over her life?

A few weeks ago, she felt good about the course her life was taking. But now that her immaculate house of cards has collapsed, she has to wonder what did it.

Was it her father?

Was it her mother?

Was it Riverdale?

Or was it her - from the moment she was born - falling, failing, gasping for air - her?

...

It feels like Archie has barely closed his eyes before the sun is streaming in through the windows and someone is pounding on their door. He staggers out of bed and down the stairs and flings it open, his dad coming up behind him. "What?" he growls, leaning heavily on the frame and rubbing his eyes.

"I need to talk to you and Veronica," Sheriff Keller says wearily. When Archie can finally focus his eyes he sees that he looks completely wrecked; he can only imagine the kind of night Keller must have had.

"Veronica is in bed. Where she needs to be. What can I do for you?" he asks pointedly.

"I need both of you," he says, pushing his way into the house. He's followed by Kevin, Jughead, and Betty, the latter of which gives him an apologetic look.

"How is he?" Archie asks quietly, staying her as they watch Jughead head into the living room.

"Not spiraling," she says, clearly relieved. "And Sheriff Keller says he's not a suspect as of now, despite what Reggie accused him of." It's one of the few pieces of good news they've had, other than Veronica, who chooses that moment to appear on the staircase, knuckles wrapped tightly around the banister, looking bedraggled.

"How do you feel?" Keller asks politely as he sits down.

"About as good as I look," Veronica says sarcastically as Archie helps her make her way to the couch. It doesn't escape Archie's notice how carefully she lowers herself onto it, how much pain she must be in.

"You need to be in bed," he says quietly, leaning over to whisper in her ear as Kevin and Jughead drag chairs from the kitchen table so everyone can sit down.

"I'm fine," she dismisses. Archie bites his tongue because he doesn't want to fight with her in front of everyone.

"I'm sorry to barge in on you like this. I know you're not at your best right now, but it couldn't wait," Keller says specifically to Veronica before turning to face Archie as well. "We found Hiram and Hermione Lodge's fingerprints on the debris from the bomb."

Archie glances at Veronica, and the look that passes between them lets him know they're thinking the same thing: that the investors are trying to frame her parents.

"They have an alibi; they were out of the state. So while we can be confident that they didn't personally plant the bomb, we're opening an investigation to see if they had anything to do with building it." Sheriff Keller side eyes Archie now, like he's bracing for some fit he knows he's about pitch. "And, Veronica - like I said, I'm sorry to do this, but we have no choice but to consider the possibility that - well, that you may have planted it."

That has Archie practically apoplectic. He gets to his feet. "Are you kidding me, Sheriff Keller?"

Jughead and Betty get to their feet too, angry. "What the hell, Keller?" Jughead says. "You said you were just going to ask Veronica what she remembers."

Archie feels acid rising up in his throat as his anger dawns bright and harsh. "Are you actually theorizing that Veronica risked killing herself so she could set off a bomb in a practically empty room? _Are you kidding me?_ " he repeats, and there is a moment where he forgets anyone else is there. It's just Sheriff Keller and him, fighting over insinuations about the only girl he's ever really loved.

"Archie, listen," Keller begins, "I need to take Veronica down to the station for questioning, and you can come if you want. It will only be about an hour-"

Archie interrupts him. "Is she under arrest?"

"Of course not."

"Then that would be an illegal detention," he says, quick as a whip. He learned that from his mom. "I think you need to leave now, Sheriff Keller. Get out of my house and go find whoever _actually_ tried to kill Veronica. Because right now all you're doing is proving that you're _really_ bad at your job."

But then, from behind him comes Veronica's voice. "I'll go in for questioning, Sheriff Keller."

"No," Archie snaps.

" _Excuse me_?" Veronica shoots back. "Though I had nothing to do with the bombing, I have no problem with clearing up the confusion," she adds smoothly. Of the two of them, Veronica is apparently the only one with a modicum of grace, not that this comes as any sort of revelation to Archie.

Sheriff Keller smiles at her gratefully, but Archie says, "I don't give a shit. You need to be here. Resting."

"Can you excuse us for a minute?" Veronica asks. She pushes herself up slowly, walks stiffly to the staircase, and doesn't let Archie help her as she makes her way to his bedroom, where she slams the door shut, leaving the two of them alone again.

"You're not going," he says again, standing in front of the door like he can stop her.

"Yes I am."

"No you're not!" Archie explodes, and for a moment they're back in her room the night before the bombing. "God damn it Veronica, why won't you let me keep you safe?!"

She doesn't try to interrupt his rant, just stands a few feet away from him with her arms crossed over her chest and a pissed off expression on her face.

"Look at yourself! You can barely get out of bed and you think you're up to going to the Sheriff's station? You could have died yesterday, and now he's accusing you of doing it yourself. It's bullshit."

"I agree, but what about the police force in Riverdale isn't? Archie, if I don't do this, it's going to make me look suspicious. Clearly, the investors want to frame my family, and I'm not going to be insolent and uncooperative to add fuel to whatever fire they're trying to build."

He stares at her for a long minute before he huffs out a breath and slumps against the dresser. "I can't do this, any of it, without you. I already knew that, but nothing felt real until yesterday when I was in the hospital waiting for someone to come out and tell me whether or not you were still alive."

She's quiet. "I don't want to go," she says finally.

"Then don't," Archie says quickly, hoping to stem the rest of the words he knows are coming.

"I have to."

"He can question you here."

"You know that's not going to happen."

He sighs, finally running up the white flag. "Alright. Let's just get through today," he says heavily, pushing himself away from the dresser. "We should get ready."

"Hey," Veronica says, reaching out for him and reeling him back in. She kisses him softly. "It's going to be okay. I love you."

Archie closes his eyes and rests his forehead against hers. "I love you too," he says quietly.

...

The questioning takes longer than Sheriff Keller predicted, mostly because he has to run off to tend to some other crime that gets called in on his walkie talkie, and Veronica, Archie, Betty, and Jughead have to sit in the lobby for what feels like days before he finally comes back and proceeds to ask her relentless questions about things that seem completely irrelevant. Oh, and of course he repeatedly says, " _This is all just procedural, Veronica. You're not a suspect._ "

By the time they leave the sheriff's station, though, that's exactly how she feels. The sun is just starting to set when they decide to go to Betty's house. It's been too long, Veronica says, since they spent anything akin to casual quality time together. _Hospital visits and police investigations aren't how normal friends hang out together._

Even still, once there, Veronica can't seem to revel in the gathering. While Archie and Betty and Jughead laugh and eat pizza, she excuses herself for a moment and slips past the kitchen, out the sliding door, and across the covered patio, avoiding the bright patch thrown by the floodlight affixed to the back of the house. She makes straight for the swingset in Betty's backyard, wet from this afternoon's rainstorm.

She sits.

It's not that she doesn't want to be with them, exactly. That's not what it is at all. She just doesn't know how to do this, all the clang and chatter in the house. Not when Betty and Jughead are still so oblivious to everything that's going on. She's more instinctively afraid of their reaction than she is panicked about it, the way she was taught to be afraid of tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes. _Telling Betty and Jughead they were almost killed because of her: terrifying._

It's her fault, she thinks again, swinging slowly back and forth without much of a long term plan. She doesn't know how to tell them. She doesn't-

"What are you doing?"

Archie sidles across the damp grass, hands in his pockets. She hadn't seen him coming - he'd edged around the floodlight, too.

"Um." She gropes around for plausible deniability, and finding none, has to settle for the truth. "Hiding."

Archie raises his eyebrows, pauses by the other swing. "From anything in particular?" It's frustratingly dark out here; fine for brooding, sure, but for all the world he wants to pull Veronica into the light and just… _look_.

 _Everyone_ , as a matter of fact, but she doesn't say that out loud. "That," she begins instead, stalling for time, "is a very good question."

It's raining again, just drizzle, almost imperceptible. Neither of them move.

Veronica says, "I need to tell them."

Archie says, "I know." When she looks up, she finds him staring back. "Ronnie," he says, and it occurs to her that her nickname has seldom been on his lips these last few days. _Veronica_ , he's been saying, because they're being oppressed by this crushing weight of life-and-death gravity, and _Ronnie_ was what he called her when things were okay. When tenderness wasn't tainted by the fear that they were going to lose each other. Back when endearment didn't feel like something that hurt. "I'm sorry."

She rocks back and forth on the swing, slow. She doesn't encourage his apology - whatever the hell he's sorry for, he shouldn't be. Whatever it is, she already knows that in reality, it's _her_ fault. Whatever it is, she should be the one apologizing.

"That night before the explosion. I walked out on you. I said you were trying to get yourself killed, and-" here he pauses, wipes a hand across his forehead to get rid of the raindrops. He looks at her again, his expression wry and heartbroken and honest. "And then you were almost killed. So I'm sorry, Ronnie - I jinxed it, or something, and I wasn't there to walk you to school, and I wasn't there to protect you when the bomb went off. I promised you I would keep you safe, and then I… didn't." In that moment he looks so colossally sad, so raw and regretful. "I'm sorry."

They gaze at each other for a moment, the rain still hissing steadily all around them and her heart beating small and whisper-quiet inside her chest. She knows it's her move here, that Archie's told her the worst and most honest thing he can think of. She remembers the fight they had the night before the bombing, how defeated he looked. How defeated he looks now. It doesn't feel like she's won anything at all.

"It means true and bold," she tells him finally, wiping either tears or rain off her face with the back of one cold, damp hand. She doesn't know why it suddenly feels like it matters.

Archie physically startles at the response. He looks at her, blinking. "Huh?" he asks.

"Your name," she manages after a moment. "Archie. True and bold."

It's not what he was hoping for; that much is clear by the way his shoulders sag. Still, he musters a smile. "Wish I fit that description these days," is all he tells her. Offers a hand to pull her to her feet.

 **...**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, please review! I was going to try my hand at some mild-ish smut but I decided to move it to the next chapter because Veronica just got bombed yesterday and I didn't really think headboard banging sexy times were the order of the day. Fair warning for next chapter though!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Note that this chapter is M rated. If you've got a problem reading about Archie and Veronica getting it on, skip that part.**

 **...**

Keeping Betty out of the loop has been making Veronica miserable. For the past week she's been going to text her - for all kinds of reasons, stupid regular stuff, like the new pop song lodging itself deep inside her brain, or to ask her if she wants to go to Pop's together. And, of course, Veronica has been itching to call her every time the house settles or a tree branch rustles, fear that runs like a flattened palm down her spine, making her jumpy and putting her on edge. She's kept Betty in the dark on purpose, but that does nothing to alleviate the emptiness of not having her best friend to tell things to. It's lonelier than any breakup could ever be.

So, when she and Archie walk back inside the house and Betty passes by them on her way to the kitchen, Veronica catches her by the wrist, her fingers curling around the bracelet she's wearing. "Betty," she starts, then completely fails to follow it up in any meaningful kind of way.

Betty raises her eyebrows, curious. She has a stack of dirty plates in one arm. "What's up, V?"

Veronica hesitates. She wants to ask her how she's feeling; she wants to know how the new article is coming along. She wants to tell her that she's sorry, that she feels like one of those horrible girls that can't make friendships work with other girls, that she misses her and that she didn't mean to endanger her and that she'll do anything she wants to make it up to her. She wants to fix this, but she doesn't know how to do it, doesn't even know how to tell Betty that there's anything that _needs_ fixing. She shakes her head. Jughead and Archie and Betty are all watching her.

"Can I help you wash these?" Veronica backs out at the last possible second, swooping in and whisking the plates away from Betty, carrying them over to the sink. Her best friend follows her.

While Betty fills the sink with soapy water, Veronica rearranges the magnetic letters on the fridge. _BETTY_ , she spells, red and green and yellow. _HOME_.

Betty washes and Veronica dries. "Everything okay?" Betty asks, voice quiet, just loud enough that only they can hear. Archie and Jughead are in the living room, talking in hushed voices, too.

"Hmm?" Veronica asks, stalling, rubbing at a plate with more force than is strictly called for. "I told you the medication already took my headache away."

Betty works steadily, the efficient sound of sponge scrubbing ceramic. "I don't mean physically," she says softly, and her eyes drift over to look at Veronica then. "Is everything okay?" she repeats.

"No," Veronica murmurs, staring at the water swirling down the drain. She feels as trapped as she did the day her father was arrested, like she could burst into flames where she stands and all anybody would say is _Boy, some weather we're having_. Like possibly she doesn't even exist.

She's wrong, though. Betty twists the tap off and turns to her, wraps her in the tightest hug she thinks she's ever felt. _Betty. Home._

"Do we need to go somewhere?" she asks. "To talk?"

Veronica rests her head on Betty's shoulder, unwilling to let go. "This is something I have to tell you and Jughead." She smells clean and familiar, vanilla and safety, and Veronica breathes her in to try and keep it together. She knows she's going to lose her best friend, sure as if she were moving clear across the world. She knows she's never going to look at her the same way again, and honestly, she's not sure she even wants her to. Still, part of Veronica misses her already, and she wants to soak her up while she still can.

But eventually, Betty pulls back, lays one cool hand on Veronica's cheek like she's checking for a fever, for something she senses but can't prove. "Don't worry, V."

Veronica tries to smile, tries to tell herself she isn't scared, that the walls aren't pressing in on all sides. "Let's join the boys."

…

To say Jughead doesn't take Veronica's confession well would be like calling a category five hurricane a little bit of inconvenient drizzle. He yells - Jesus Christ, he _yells_ at her, all kinds of hateful accusations she would like never to think about again. Archie defends her. Betty cries. And Veronica cries, too.

Then the quiet comes.

After Jughead leaves in a fit of frustration and rage, Archie and Veronica and Betty sit together on the couch. Betty holds Veronica's hand and doesn't say a word, no way to tell what she's thinking. Archie runs his hand up and down her back. They silently do what they can to soothe her, to make her feel less alone; still, she spends the rest of the long foggy night sure of nothing so much as the feeling of standing on the edge of a canyon and screaming, waiting for an echo that refuses to come.

Another storm hits the town that night, thunder bellowing and lightning skittering across the horizon like the sky itself is cracking open, like all hell is literally breaking loose. Veronica thinks about her parents on an airplane to Riverdale, gazing out the pressurized window at the chalky sky and everything beyond it - stars and galaxies and dark matter, the entire scattered universe. Scattered, but acceptable. Indefinitely incomplete. She wonders: why can't she be indefinitely incomplete too?

...

Archie shifts, trying to find a position that will lull him back to sleep. It's Saturday, damn it. He's not getting up this early. He's not. But his body disagrees, and his mind isn't far behind, reminding him of all the things he needs to do.

In addition to the many chores and the pile of schoolwork he's been eschewing, he knows there are things he needs to be doing for Veronica and his friends, things that have been put on the back burner. But after what happened last night, they need to be dealt with. _Immediately,_ his brain insists.

He can't even remember the last time he had a conversation with Veronica that didn't revolve around something dangerous or sad.

He turns over, gathering her against him, his chest pressed to her back, and tries to ground himself in the feel of her body against his. When they got back from Betty's house after Veronica told them everything, he forced her to bed. She felt so wrecked she let him. It didn't stop her working early this morning, though; she fought through headaches and exhaustion and dizzy spells to call her teachers and tell them she won't be in school for a few days next week, to get her assignments over the phone. More than once Archie had to pry the receiver out of her hands and end the calls himself.

But right now she's laying beside him, and for the first time in awhile, this feels normal. Or it would, if he could get back to sleep, which he can't.

And once he decides that going back to sleep is a fantasy, he starts disentangling himself from Veronica, trying hard not to roughly kick away the blankets in his frustration. He still wakes her up.

"Are you going out?" she mumbles once he's sitting on the edge of the bed.

"No. Just can't sleep," he says quietly, leaning over to kiss her between her brows. "You should though. I'll go out in the living room so I don't keep you up."

She twines her arm around his neck, holding him to her. "Lay with me for a little while," she entreats.

"You're sure?" he hedges, though he's already making to lie down again because really; if it's a choice between working and Veronica, he'll take Ronnie every time.

"It's fine. I'm up," she assures him, though her voice is sluggish and heavy.

They settle back in bed, him on his back, her pressed against his side, one leg thrown over his and her arm slung around his waist to keep him there.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," she murmurs, rubbing her nose against his neck. "How about you?"

"Your leg's not bothering you?" he asks, ignoring her question and carding his fingers through her hair in the way he know she likes. The bruises on her leg have only faded to a sickly yellow, the trauma to her muscles so deeply rooted it's yet to heal completely. It pains her, he knows, though she doesn't mention it to him.

"It's fine."

"You know that's not an answer."

"And you know you're just avoiding my question," she quips.

He sighs deeply, trying to find the right words. "I'm… I don't know. Just a lot going on in my head."

"You just need to relax," she says smugly. And suggestively. She tilts his lips towards her with a finger hooked under his chin and gives him a kiss that promises a lot more.

"And you need to heal," he reminds her. He tries to pull away, but he's already half hard and it's a weak protect at best.

"I'm not as fragile as you think I am," she says, running her fingers down his bare chest. He catches them just before they dip under the waistband of his sweatpants.

"I know you're not," he groans. "But I don't want to hurt you."

"Mmm, you can do all the work then," she mumbles against his lips before kissing him more insistently. He pulls away, ready to argue with her some more, but she cuts him off. "Archie, please. It's been over a week for me too."

His whole body gives in to her at that, and with another groan he swoops back down to fit their lips together. He doesn't know how long he kisses her for, just that it feels like forever and not long enough and the bedroom lightens by slow degrees around them. Her arms vine around his neck, a whimper trapped in her throat and held there by his lips on hers. Even when Archie pulls away, it's just to blaze a trail of kisses down her neck to the cut of her shirt exposing her collarbones, pressing her body into the mattress with his own.

She sighs when she spreads her legs to cradle him against her, and all he can think is that it's been so long. It's been easy in the recent rush of their lives to forget that they've barely had any time alone; not with assassins and car crashes and everything else demanding their attention and energy.

"I've missed you," Archie mumbles against the swell of her breast where it's exposed above her bra, once he's got her shirt off.

He knows from experience that he needs to go slow, but really all he wants to do is bury himself inside her and revel in the feel of his skin against hers. Still, he knows if he doesn't he'll hurt her, so he slinks down her body, pulling her cotton shorts down and tugging off her underwear before climbing back up, his lips leading the way to the apex of her thighs. Her back bows off the bed with the first swipe of his tongue and Archie has to hold her down by her hips, her body writhing above him.

Veronica tries to push him away when she gets close to coming, always wanting him inside her when she does, but Archie persists, if only because he's not sure he could last long enough to get her off otherwise.

Her entire body is flushed and her eyes are glassy when he finally pulls away, wiping his mouth hastily as he practically rips his pants off. As soon as he does she reaches out for him entreatingly, drawing him back into her embrace.

She kisses him deeply, clutching at his shoulders. When he slowly pushes inside her it's enough to make his hips shudder and surge forward, heedless of whatever his brain is trying to tell him about going slowly.

It only takes a few minutes before he feels her contract, her mouth tearing away from his and opening in a silent scream as pleasure crashes through her like a wave. Veronica's whole body is shaking and covered in a thin layer of sweat by the time it's done.

"I love you," she says, breathless, still mired in the rush of it all.

"I love you too," Archie grits out, more from trying to hold off his own climax than anything else.

Veronica comes back to herself slowly, and when she does he's right there waiting for her, his movement small and controlled. Her hands work their way into his hair, and eventually her lips meet his again, too.

The movement of their tongues mimic the way he's moving inside her, at first languid and exploring, enjoying the reunion, and then more insistent, urging him towards his own end, and finally, deeply, demandingly, and he comes with a cry barely muffled against her shoulder.

They stay tangled together afterwards, neither one willing to break the connection. But eventually they do, and Veronica wants to go back to sleep. She's barely shut her eyes before her phone is ringing though, _now_ , at the ungodly hour of 8:30 AM. Since she laid awake for hours last night replaying the bombing and the screaming in her head, she isn't amused.

"Hello?" she says.

"Veronica?" It's her father. She knows it's her father because she recognizes his voice, but it's tempered with something she's not used to hearing from him: Defeat. Weariness.

She sits up straight in bed. Beside her, Archie is staring up curiously. "Daddy?" she says, all at once alert. "Did your flight come in?"

"No, mija," he says. "We had some problems. With the airport," he adds quickly, in a voice that makes Veronica think his problems in fact had nothing to do with the airport. "We won't be home for a few more days. I just wanted to call and tell you. And to let you know-" here he pauses, then says, "everything is going to be okay. No more bad things will happen while we're gone. I promise. I love you."

Veronica's heart beats quickly. Archie is looking at his own phone now, though his attention is still clearly on her. "Dad, what happened with the investors?" she starts to ask, but before she can get the question out, he's already hung up, the line disconnecting with a definitive click.

Archie blows out a breath as he sits up next to her. "Jughead wants us to meet him for breakfast at Pop's."

Clearly, the universe wants them to get back to the life that exists outside of Archie's bedroom door, and they can only comply. But when they meet Jughead, pink cheeked and still ardent, they're on the receiving end of a very sarcastic eye roll and a comment about it being 'good to know they're keeping busy while Veronica is literally on medical absence.' He could be joking, but his eyes are cold as marbles.

It makes Veronica's stomach twist unpleasantly. She hates the idea of fighting with him, but even more than that, she hates being the cause of Archie fighting with him - his best friend. "Jughead-"

"No," he says, barely glancing up from his coffee. His hands are wrapped around the ceramic cup. "I need you not to talk to me for a few minutes. I'm pissed. And I don't usually get pissed at you, Veronica. I don't have a whole lot of experience doing it. So I need both of you to sit here and order your breakfast and not talk to me until I'm finishing computing."

"That's not fair," Archie protests. He sits down across from Jughead and against her better judgement, Veronica does too. "Veronica didn't force any of this to happen. You can't blame her."

Jughead looks at him now, rolls his eyes like he's being stupid on purpose. "I wouldn't even be angry about this if Betty hadn't almost died, which - _whoops_. Ever stop to think these psychopaths could be coming after you next, Archie?"

Veronica has the strangest, sharpest flash of annoyance just then. Already, she's fed up with him. Betty is her best friend, and she doesn't want to hear out loud what she's already been decrying in her head for days: that _she_ nearly killed her. It makes her hate herself a little. It makes her hate Jughead a little, too. "Fine," she says, cavalier as she can manage. "I'm a shitty girlfriend for endangering Archie, and a shitty friend for what happened to you and Betty."

"Okay, _listen_ ," Jughead sighs noisily and pushes his coffee aside, an expression on his face like he didn't want to say this but Archie and Veronica had to go ahead and push him, so here goes. "I know things have been rough for you, Veronica. And it sucks in an Alanis Morissette, isn't-it-ironic kind of way that you came to Riverdale to get away from all the awful parts of your life and this shit is still happening to you, but I feel like you've done a pretty good job at achieving whatever redemption arc you were after, and obviously you don't want any of this stuff to be happening, but that doesn't change the fact that it is." He ticks off a list on his fingers like potential side effects of some new, unapproved medication. "Betty and I get ran off the road. Your father comes in to question us about it. You get bombed. Your parents skip town, they don't even come back after the bombing. Usually you two would be all over trying to stop these maniacs, but instead it's like you're sitting here waiting for something even worse to happen. And maybe you're scared, and maybe it's out of character or maybe you're the only people you can be yourselves around. Maybe there's more to all this than you're letting on. Maybe it's a conspiracy even to you. I don't know. That's your business and you can deal with this crisis however you want - as long as other people don't get dragged down while you're figuring it out."

"My parents are in New York fixing this right now!" Veronica argues, bristling.

Jughead makes a face. "Veronica, don't even kid. Your parents caused this mess, directly or indirectly. And that's not-" he stops short, shakes his head. "I don't want you to think I'm mad at you because of the crash."

"Then why are you mad at me?" she explodes. She glances around, self conscious - there are a couple businessman drinking coffee at the bar, an elderly couple or two eating breakfast. She lowers her voice. "Why?"

"I'm mad at you-" he sighs again. "I'm mad at you because it's like this terrifying thing is happening and you both just forgot that you're incredible. _We_ solved Jason Blossom's murder. _We_ found out who the Black Hood was. I'm not even really mad that your father brought all this to Riverdale, even though everyone thinks your family is the Antichrist-"

"Thanks," Veronica interrupts, and Jughead pushes out a noisy breath.

"I just feel," he says crisply. "Like you're forgetting yourselves over this."

Now Archie's the one who's pissed. "What exactly am I forgetting, Jughead? That my best friends were almost killed last week? That my girlfriend was targeted with a bomb? That she's being sent literal death threats from the mafia or whoever the hell is really behind this? And you expect us to team up and try to take them down like they wouldn't put bullets in our heads the second they caught wind of what we were trying to do? Would that help you maintain this image you have in your head where we go after the bad guys and win?"

Veronica wants to calm Archie down, to take them both out of here, step on the gas and figure out what to do after that. She remembers, suddenly, the nights she spent at galas when she was ten and eleven, sitting at a table by herself drinking sparkling water while her parents said their goodbyes to their colleagues. She wants her parents now, is the truth.

When Archie starts to stand, Veronica moves out of his way so he can get out of the booth. She's so sick of everyone else's opinions she could scream, and she thinks he feels the same way. "Thanks, Jughead," he says, nasty as humanly possible. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

He takes Veronica's hand and pulls her toward the exit.

As they drive, she stares out the window. She thinks of Seattle, of rainy woods and coffee on cloudy mornings. She thinks of the desert and hot, arid air. She thinks of the middle of this country, the endless rolling green of it, and she wants so badly to get out of this place.

But right now, as everything Jughead said seeps in, the only logical conclusion she can draw is that she needs to go to New York.

She needs to fix this.

…

Archie is showering and Veronica is sitting at his kitchen table, formulating an escape from Riverdale the likes of which would have impressed Houdini. She's weighing the pros and cons of telling Archie about her insane and murky plan when the bell rings once. She makes her way to the living room and flings the door open: there's Betty on the other side, wearing a pale pink sweater and an open, anticipating expression. "Good," she breathes. "You're still here."

"Betty." Veronica blinks once, holding the door open.

Betty walks in and they both go back to the table and sit. Veronica is afraid she might be here to restate everything Jughead said, but the morning light is filtering in and glowing softly on her skin when she says, "I should have told you this last night, but I was-" she pauses. "Processing everything you said, I guess. But Veronica, I'm not mad at you. I would never blame you for what's happening, and I know you must be scared - I definitely am. You haven't had a whole lot of breaks, so I'm giving you one. Jughead might be mad, but I'm not, and I'm going to talk to him. I'm here for you, V. We're all in the together."

Right away Veronica feels a lump rise up in her throat. Her hands sit sort of helplessly in her lap. "You always give me breaks," she manages, voice cracking a little bit - and she doesn't deserve her, she doesn't, somebody as brave and smart as Betty to help her fight her wars. "You're my best friend."

Betty smiles a little, eyebrows turning like she's worried Veronica's going to get her started, too. "Oh, stop it," she says quietly, and then: "You're my best friend, too."

Well, that does it. Veronica's crying for real when she gets to her feet, everything so painfully close to the surface all the time. "I'm sorry," she tells Betty, almost too far gone to get the words out. "I never wanted you to get hurt."

Betty stands too, wrapping her arms around her. "I know," she tells her, her blonde temple bumping softly against Veronica's. "I'm sorry, too. I should have talked to Jughead before he could get to you and Archie this morning. And I should have told you sooner that I wasn't mad."

"I thought you were going to hate me forever," Veronica says, and realizes it's true: she thought for sure their friendship was over, that she'd lost her for good and would never be able to find a way back. She's so hugely relieved that she's here.

Betty smiles. "I could never hate you," she says. "I love you too much for that." She sighs a little, squeezes. Waits for Veronica to quiet down. "Shh, V. You're okay." She says it again a minute later, just quiet: "You're okay," she promises softly, and there's something in her voice to make Veronica believe.

 **...**

 **Thanks for reading! I hope you liked this chapter - please let me know your thoughts, your comments are incredibly motivating! As a quick reminder, you can also find/engage with me on tumblr as vaarchie. :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**This chapter was probably the most difficult for me to write because the headspace was so heavy. Hope you like it! Also, if you're a fan of Scandal (or the 100), there's an easter egg towards the end!**

...

Once Veronica manages to pull herself together, she sits down again, crossing her arms over the table. The wood feels cold and clean against her skin. Betty sits across from her, patient. She can hear Archie getting out of the shower, the sound of life spinning on, and he joins them in the kitchen in a matter of minutes, toweling off his hair and giving a surprised greeting to Betty.

"There was something Jughead said this morning," Veronica begins, now that they're all together. "About how I'm not doing anything to stop the investors."

"Oh, V, that's not-" Betty begins, but Veronica interrupts.

"No, he was right. I mean, if this was anything else, I'd be doing everything I could to put an end to it. But since it's so close to my family," she pauses, collects her thoughts. Realization dawns like the sun. "It made me scared. And fear is paralyzing." She looks at Betty earnestly. "But not anymore. I'm done being afraid, and I know what I need to do."

Archie is watching her cautiously. "What's that, Ronnie?"

Veronica reaches out and takes his hand. "I'm going to New York. I'm part of Lodge Industries, and I have a right to be involved with the negotiations, which, at this point, are taking so long that it's clear my parents are refusing to sacrifice or make a trade-off. I need to be there to influence them at the very least." Betty and Archie both look like they're about to protest, but Veronica pushes ahead. "My mind is made up. I'm leaving in an hour, and I'll be back as soon as I can."

"You don't have to do this, V," Betty says. She doesn't smile. A breeze blows in from the half open window, and a strand of blonde hair flutters free from her ponytail. "Veronica."

Veronica sighs a bit. She knew they wouldn't choose the path of least resistance and just let her go, but she's still frustrated. "Yeah, I do."

"No, I mean. Not to like, hit you over the head with the fact that you're sixteen or anything, but" - Betty looks at her pointedly - "you really don't."

She laughs in spite of herself, a dark, hollow sound. "You think I haven't thought about that?" she asks her, dropping Archie's hand to prop her chin up on one elbow. "It's occurred to me. But it doesn't change anything, and the fact that we're sixteen didn't stop them from coming after us." She picks at a loose thread on the cuff of her sleeve, watching it unravel. "Anyway, that's not even really it."

"Okay," Betty tells her. She leans forward over the table, blue eyes sharp and curious. "Then what is it really?"

Veronica shrugs a little. Archie is watching her, waiting for the answer, and she's trying to think how to explain it - how to tell them that in some weird way she's already made the break between her old life and her new one. Like everything that's happened has pushed her over some boundary, some line of demarcation so clearly defined that once she breached it her life would always be divided into when she was a little kid and when she wasn't, neatly bisected into the then and the now. How to tell them that she just sort of feels it in her bones.

"Ronnie-"

"Archie, I just-"

He shakes his head. "I'm coming with you."

Well. She'd expected him to put up a fight, to ask her not to go - but she hadn't expected that he'd want to come.

"Me too," Betty pipes up. "And Jughead."

"Jughead isn't-"

"Jughead isn't going to be mad anymore," Betty says. "There's no stronger team than the four of us together. He knows that. And like I told you, V, we're all in this together."

Veronica shakes her head and feels like there are loose coins rattling around inside. "It's too dangerous for you three. You won't know these people, not like I do."

Archie slides his hand up her arm. "Well," he sighs. "Danger has never stopped us before. And anyways, it's obvious that Riverdale is no safer. Plus," he smiles a little, but it fails to reach his eyes, "I've always wanted to see Central Park."

Veronica tries to smile back and misses by roughly the distance between here and the other side of the world. "It's nice there," is all she says.

…

Betty was right. Jughead comes. The four of them drive for several hours in Hiram's five seater before they pull off to grab provisions and fuel up.

Veronica inhales deeply, then exhales. _This is happening_ , she whispers under her breath as she drifts down an aisle.

The store smells cheap. It doesn't reek, but it has a sterile stench that's on par with the Riverdale Hospital and makes her want to pinch her nose. She lifts her chin up to look around. The aisle is a crowded affair, filled with strangers, and for the first time in her life she sees an extra layer of meaning in that word. Not that there's anything inherently _strange_ about a man in a business suit drinking wine straight from the bottle, or about a group of elderly women looking at fish oil, or about a person with teardrops tattooed on his face, but when these unique individuals find themselves in close proximity to one another in aisle two of a random roadside convenience store… voilà. Strangers.

But who is she to judge? She's the token teen with a half baked plan, so she supposes she's only adding to the strange vibe. She grabs a bottle of water as a middle aged woman pushes past her to get to the Cheerios. She picks up peroxide, gauze, and a tube of Neosporin, bypasses the thirty-racks of Bud Light in the industrial fridge, and hopes no one says anything to her as she wishes she were at home with Hermione. Her mother believes in dinner parties and wine tasting at dusk, events that require invitations and drinks with stirs and a glass jug full of daisies on the table. " _Veronica, sweetheart_ ," she would say if she could see the way her daughter is spending her night. " _This is not what we do_."

She doesn't want to think about her mother in this store. She doesn't want to think about anything, actually, so she plays games to keep herself occupied as she waits in line: Count The Drunk People, or Things She Wishes She Were Doing Right Now. She doesn't want to go back out to the car. She can feel herself receding, going so far that no one can catch her, and she doesn't know how to stop it, just wants to get everyone out of this alive.

The cashier surveys her purchases and looks at her half-sympathetically and says, "Hope your day gets better."

"Thanks," she says, staring at the harsh fluorescent light.

Archie is pumping gas when she walks out, looking tired. His shoulders jut a little beneath his t-shirt, fiberglass or shale.

Actually, she thinks as she watches him: they look sort of oddly like wings.

She's still walking toward the car when he gets back in and turns the engine over, the taillights glowing like two red coals. She slides into the front seat and Archie pulls back onto the road, the convenience store fading in the rearview mirror like waking up from a dream.

…

It's early evening when they finally get to New York, the sun drifting toward the western sky behind them as they locate their hotel. It's not sketchy or cheap or even tucked away from the busiest streets - _hiding in plain sight,_ as Veronica put it. After they get the keys to both their rooms, Archie and Jughead and Betty all look at Veronica.

"So," Jughead says, "we're in New York. What's the next step?" he asks, eyeing the doorman and keeping his voice low.

Veronica straightens. She's thought about coming back to New York so many times over the last six months that actually being here feels a little like a dream, too. She traveled back here, with Archie no less, which was something she wanted and wanted and wanted for so long that wanting it was almost a part of her chemical makeup, so badly that even now that they're here she's still on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It would be different, maybe, if the circumstances were something other than what they are. As it is, they're here to investigate, and everyone is still watching her, waiting for an answer.

"Now we go to Lodge Industries headquarters," she says, her tone cool and collected, like she knows what she's doing. She _does_ know what she's doing, she tries to remind herself; the drive up here gave her plenty of time to formulate a plan, and she's smart, quick on her feet. Most importantly, she knows her way around New York and around her father's associates, so really, she has no reason to panic yet.

The drive to Lodge Industries' capital is uneventful, and unfortunately, so is their arrival. They sit on the street outside the shiny, looming building waiting for any sign of anyone Veronica knows - namely her parents - but all she sees is unfamiliar people in business suits going in and out of the revolving doors. She wonders what would happen if she walked in right now and started asking questions; " _Hi, I'm the owner's daughter. Just here to see how things are going with the coup._ " It might be worth it just to see the looks on their faces.

She grows increasingly frustrated as the minutes go by with nothing to show. What they don't tell you about stakeouts is how long and often fruitless they are, and Veronica is having a hard time accepting that nothing is happening. Once the sky is full dark and Lodge Industries starts shutting off its lights, Archie finally says, "Maybe we should try again tomorrow, Ronnie."

She pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes, colors exploding like fireworks, like something detonating inside her head.

…

Betty and Jughead join Archie and Veronica in their room, probably to discuss tomorrow's plan. Archie stands and stares out the window while Veronica digs around in her overnight bag for a bottle of aspirin she knows she threw in there.

"So we didn't find anything today," Betty says, sounding logical. "Not the end of the world. What we need," she says, "is to relax. So what's happening tonight? Any plans?"

Well, sort of, if overthinking and being on edge counts. "Was thinking I'd jet down to Havana for the weekend, actually," Veronica tells her, figuring sarcasm is the safe way to go. Archie is still staring out the window. "Check out the nightlife."

"Oh, I see," Betty flops down onto the bed. "Well, if you think you could maybe blow off El Presidente just for tonight, I think we should all go out. Try to have one night of normalcy before we start hunting and negotiating with assassins tomorrow."

"What, at a club?" Veronica is a little disbelieving. "This, from Betty Cooper?"

Betty shrugs, arches an eyebrow. "It's not like we need to get drunk or do drugs," she says, "but dancing and having a good time? That sounds pretty tempting to me. We _are_ in New York City, after all."

Veronica is remembering so clearly the way she was when she was thirteen, when she was fourteen, when she was fifteen. How _she_ would have been the one to suggest going clubbing and getting _spectacularly_ drunk, thank you very much. Back then, it would have been procedural. For one fleeting second Veronica almost says no, almost says she's too tired from the drive and needs to draw up a plan for when she comes into contact with the investors, but in the end that idea is too bleak to contemplate.

"Yeah, we are," she smiles and wills down the mass of anxiety she already feels forming in the pit of her stomach. "You know, it's sort of a bitch to get to Cuba, anyway, so."

"I mean, customs alone," Betty grins, sitting up, tightening her ponytail. "We should all get ready."

Jughead speaks then. "You're not serious, are you?" Veronica had almost forgotten he was there, but she looks at him now, his eyebrows knitted together and an expression on his face like Betty's broken his beating heart. "I mean- you can't be _serious_."

"I agree with Jughead." That was Archie, turning away from the window to stand at the end of the bed and shake his head a little. "With everything that's happening, it's-"

"Possibly the _worst_ conceivable idea," Jughead interjects.

"-not the smartest move," Archie finishes.

Veronica shrugs a little. Betty gets to her feet to stand beside her. "I'm not going to sit in this hotel room and worry. If you two don't want to come, that's your decision, but I've flown solo at these clubs more times than I can count. Betty and I will be fine."

Archie laughs a little, empty and ingenuine. "Right, and I suppose Jughead and I will just sit in our respective rooms and watch Law and Order all night." He sighs. "Okay, Ronnie. You win," he says. "Let's get ready."

"Jug?" Betty asks quietly.

Jughead is still scowling. "I'm ready when you are," he says finally, and that's that.

...

New York is shiny like a carnival, all Art Deco buildings and neon storefronts, and the club where they end up looks like the bar at the Ritz compared to the one in Riverdale. They have to walk down a dark, garbage-strewn alley to get through the back door, though, and Archie wonders how Veronica knows where she's going.

She holds his hand as she expertly weaves through the crowd, pulling him along like deadweight. It seems to him that she likes crowds, big noisy crushes of people. It seems to him that she's good at them.

Back in Riverdale, it was easy to forget that Veronica lived an entire life into which Archie had no point of entry - that she used to hang out with friends he's never met, party in clubs he's never heard of.

She lets go when they get to the bar, peering through the smoke, and leans over it to order shots. She asks Archie what he wants and she has to raise her voice to be heard over the music, something thumping and loud that Archie doesn't recognize.

He gets close to ask, "Isn't the bartender going to card you?" in her ear.

She shakes her head. "Don't worry. This is the one night we're _not worrying_ , remember?"

Archie thinks that might be impossible for him, but figures that she deserves this, some kind of escape, so ultimately he surrenders. "Okay," he says reluctantly. "I'll have whatever you're having, then."

When he says that, Veronica smiles, _really_ smiles, like the fog burning off in the morning, her golden skin and her sharp, intelligent face lighting up for the first time in what feels like forever, and it makes Archie's heart swoop, a pinball machine on _tilt_.

The bartender looks at Veronica and says, "Been awhile since you swung by," before he slides the shots across the table and takes the stack of cash that she gives him in return.

"And it will be awhile before the next time," Veronica says. She turns back to Archie then, and they start losing themselves in liquor and lips and the beat of the bass pounding through them as they dance, his hands all over her and her body pressed up against his. He has a much easier time forgetting to worry after that.

…

Veronica feels like she's been dancing for hours, she and Archie snaking their way through the crowd, the tight knots of people moving around them, glass bottles sweating in their hands. Betty and Jughead have been making out every time she's glanced over at them.

She's glad they're having fun. Archie, though, her Archie Andrews, is who's really captivating her. He's wearing a plain white t-shirt, the kind you buy in packs of three for six dollars, but of course he looks amazing, all angles and muscles and his whole body relaxed, like he's finally free. It makes her so happy to watch him, and she's never been gladder to be his girlfriend. She wishes there was a way to capture him, to write him down.

He has both hands on her waist from behind and his lips pressed to the back of her neck when she blinks once and sees someone standing against the opposite wall staring at her, his gaze too intense to not be intentional. She sets her hands over Archie's and feels her heart jump into her throat, lights strobing and the music suddenly too loud for her to even hear her own thoughts. Archie's hands run up and down the sides of her body and he guides her around to face him in one swift movement, his lips moving to her jaw, her throat, her shoulders.

"Archie," she gasps out and careens her neck around, but when she looks back at the wall, the man is gone.

She feels him hum against her skin and rests her forehead against his shoulder - her head suddenly feels heavy enough to snap off her neck entirely. She looks up and sees the man again, on the other side of the room now, eyes locked on her in a way that makes her whole body shudder. She blinks, and he disappears. She blinks again, and now he's closer, and again, and he's gone completely, until he's not - there he is in the corner, there he is by the bar, there he is a few feet away. Veronica feels rigid, stuck in place. She grips onto Archie with all her strength and thinks her knees might give out if he wasn't already holding her up.

"Babe," he says, right next to her ear. "Ronnie."

When she blinks again, the man is inches away from her face, right behind Archie, and she cries out as she tries frantically to jump away, but Archie is holding her and there's nowhere for her to run anyway, and then the man is gone but she's still panicking, trying to twist away or curl up on the ground, like maybe if she's down there no one will be able to see her or touch her or hurt her. It feels like her entire body is liquefying. She can't get over the notion that the floor isn't quite even. Her blood is pounding in her ears.

"Ronnie," Archie is saying, over and over, alarm and confusion. He lifts her up until he's the only thing keeping her from falling. "What's wrong, baby?" he asks, and then that's what he's repeating. "What's wrong?"

Her arms are wrapped around his shoulders and her eyes are full of tears as she stares at the man, who's back against the wall now. "Him," she manages, and when Archie turns to look, his eyebrows only furrow.

"Who?"

" _Him_ ," Veronica says more insistently. "Him. Staring at me." She can barely hear herself over the music. No one else is paying attention to them.

"Ronnie," Archie says, and he's still holding her so tight. "There's no one there. It's okay. There's no one there."

When Veronica blinks, the man is gone.

…

Archie tells Jughead and Betty they're leaving and then gets Veronica out of there as fast as humanly possible, leads her into a cab and then into their hotel room. She stays silent the whole time, her knuckles blanched from curling so tightly into fists, her eyes still glassy from alcohol, despite the entire experience being more than sobering. The blood, she thinks vaguely, is having a hard time getting to where it needs to be.

She sits instinctively on the bed and Archie sets the key on the table, rubs hard at his eyes, and turns to look at her. His expression is sad and it makes her feel so much worse, so she looks away, down at her hands, anywhere but into the eyes of the person she loves so desperately and hurts so badly.

He sits next to her, reaches over and picks up her hand. His calluses scrape her palm as he pulls her across the bed until she's almost sitting in his lap.

"Ronnie," he says softly. She hasn't stopped trembling.

She tries to keep her mind studiously, fastidiously blank. It feels like she's wrapped in a thick swaddle of blankets, everything muffled and coming from some far-off place. She knows somewhere in the darkest corner of her brain that she's about to break; something powerful coming, better board up the glass. As the seconds tick by and Archie looks at her, some insane part of her begins to think that she made the whole thing up. Maybe she imagined they went to a club. Maybe there were never any investors at all - and the wave of relief she feels in that moment is tidal and huge. Then she remembers it's not true.

"Ronnie," Archie whispers again, and it's enough to completely undo her.

She looks at him, finally, eyes pooling, and says, "I'm sorry," but she nearly chokes on the words and then starts sobbing, like all of the terror and emotion she's been locking down deep inside has finally boiled over with those two words, and she _can't stop._

"No, Ronnie," he says, and pulls her right into his lap. His hands are framing her face, pushing her hair back, wiping away her tears. "Don't apologize."

"There's something wrong with me," she tells him, gasping in shallow breaths that are few and far between as she tries to stop crying. "Archie," she says, "I'm broken. I'm not-" she starts shaking her head rapidly. She feels like her entire existence has been one big mistake. "This must be- is this my punishment for being a bad person? Am I just filled with some kind of sickness or darkness?" She's shaking harder now, losing control. "I deserve it, maybe," she tries to reason, and watches as Archie starts shaking his head, "I must deserve it. I do deserve it. But it _hurts._ _So bad_." It hurts worse to say it loud, actually, and she loses her ability to speak as the sobs come harder, wracking through her, and she thinks surely the human body was not designed to withstand this much pain. She finds a strange sort of comfort in the idea that maybe soon she'll shut down completely. She finds a strange sort of comfort in the idea that she's finally hit rock bottom, that after this she couldn't possibly feel any worse.

She feels like her lungs are collapsing, feels lonely and homesick and embarrassed by everything she's incapable of doing. She wants to hit rewind on this night and on this month, for this bizarre alternate universe to bend over on itself again and for everything to go back to the way it was before.

Archie hushes her softly. "Breathe, Ronnie," he whispers. He strokes her hair as she cries into his shirt, and he speaks softly, trying to calm her. "There's nothing wrong with you. Did you hear that?" He swallows. He can't stand seeing her in this much pain. "There's _nothing_ wrong with you. You're going through something traumatic, and of course you're going to break down because of it." He laughs a little, quiet and a bit choked, and kisses her shoulder. "I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner," he murmurs against her skin. "But that's just who you are, isn't it? Always holding everything together. Always putting on a brave face." His voice is slow and the hand that isn't stroking through her hair is running up and down her back, smooth and steady. "But you don't have to be so strong all the time, Ronnie. If forgiveness is what you want, I'll give that to you, okay?" he says. "You're forgiven. But I don't ever want you to apologize to me for being human." He kisses her shoulder again, trails his lips to her collarbone, her neck, her jaw, her cheeks, leans back so he can look at her face. His thumbs brush away her rapidly falling tears, but she's stopped sobbing, and she's trying to take substantial breaths. "And you're _not_ a bad person. You're the best person, you're my favorite person, and you _don't_ deserve what's happening to you. You _never_ deserve to be in pain, and it's _never_ your fault. I know it hurts, and if I could take it away, Ronnie, I would do it in a heartbeat."

Her hands are balled into fists again, and he pries them open, rubs her flattened palms to get the blood flowing back into them, kisses her knuckles and lets her rest her head on his shoulder again. He holds her like that for a long time, rubbing her back and massaging the tension out of her until she's still and quiet. He knows she must be exhausted. "I love you," he whispers finally, like a promise, and he knows - he just knows, without a doubt - that he'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.


End file.
